


Chaotic Unity

by dropout_ninja



Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [8]
Category: Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: Adventure, Alliances, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cameos, Canon Rewrite, Continuity Immigrants, Drama, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, Manipulation, Of a sorts, Or Specific Parts Of The World, Or Two Worlds In Particular, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Relationship(s), Plots To Destroy The World, Politics, Post-War, Redemption, References to Other Continuities, Supernatural Elements, Very Bad Plans, Violence, attempted redemption at the least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 37,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropout_ninja/pseuds/dropout_ninja
Summary: Five years after the great war came to its end, a former cityspeaker awakens from a stasis set by Primus to a world she can't recognize.  Adjusting to a reborn Cybertron and peacetime aren't Windblade's only problems: not so long as the warning vision given by Primus remains a mystery to puzzle over.In another realm entirely, the exile known as The Fallen watches cybertronian civil war suffocate a once vibrant universe and begins to search for a way to prevent such ravaging from occurring again.(TFP/RID15, sequelfic)
Relationships: (Past) Orion Pax/Megatron, Fallen/Solus Prime (former), Jazz & Soundwave, Orion Pax & Windblade, Windblade/Chromia (implied)
Series: If We Could Just Be What We Wanted [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761130
Comments: 96
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is another sequel to the first story in this series. Without reading that first, it may be difficult to follow this fic. If you came from there, welcome once again!  
> Timeline: this is the season finale of RID15 and, as referred to in IICJKWYW, takes place five years after the end of TFP. The actual timeline in RID was vague and, while the wiki puts it down as three years later, this series set it at five by executive decision.  
> Some other notes on continuity. This will take inspiration from the aligned novels, the Covenant of Primus, and the RID15 show. That said, it won't be following any one of those strictly to the letter regarding backstory. For clarity, this will follow with the idea from the CoP that Megatronus/The Fallen exiled himself, but also plays with the idea of him being trapped in "another dimension" (tfwiki) that RID15 had; instead of an imprisonment, as the cartoon puts it, it's a consequence of this banishment post-killing of Solus Prime. Characterization for him will also not fit any one given source material. The "First Decepticon" business of RID15 isn't going to be referenced: as in IICJKWYW, the Fallen did inspire the deceptibrand, but this is based on its representation on his helmet. Normally in writing TFP fic, I'd just ignore RID completely, but this verse has allowed me to take those aspects I like and work on them. The S1 finale of RID was rushed and barely had any foreshadowing for Megatronus's arrival, nor did it really explain why he wanted to combine/destroy both Primus and Unicron. For The Evulz, I suppose, but I wanted to give his reasoning a shot after taking into account the CoP and novels and fact that he's apparently been stuck in a different dimension watching what happens in the show's dimension for a very long time (which I doubt helps with reasoning skills; ie this prologue and following segments with his POV are rather unreliable). TL:DR...this is exploring the S1 finale of RID, but don't expect it to fit very carefully within RID's canon. Just like with previous stories in this series, the timeline loosely fits into that show, but quite a lot of liberties are taken with details, characterizations, and plots.  
> As with the rest of the series, expect continuity immigrants and references.  
> I've been looking forward to this one since March, so I hope you all enjoy the ride along with me! This here is the prologue, so it's a bit shorter than the other chapters should be. This is just as unbeta'd as the rest, so here's my preemptive apology for the inevitable mistakes. Hope to see you in the comments!

A self-imposed banishment.

An exile of grief.

There had been no suggestion of what that exile would equate to. There had been no suggestion of the planes and realms he would see. There had been nothing to suggest the clarity with which he would look back at his past world from the outside.

It felt like a clearer view than anything he'd had before. It was a clarity that gave him a path he never would have considered before.

Still, he thought of the old before considering taking that path. He thought of twelve others. He thought of the one he had loved so fully. She'd been a culmination of so many good qualities. Passion. Bravery. Well meaning. Strength.

One good did not outweigh the rest. One good did not absolve their sins.

One good...

There'd been a war- multiple, in fact- in his absence. The previous had involved cybertronians and a civilization that had sought to enslave them. The damage done by that atrocity still paled compared to the tragedy of the later civil war. This particular war eradicated more than just its two fighting sides. This particular war lasted longer than most alien civilizations lasted naturally. 

It had led to enormous loss of life. Primus had gone dormant in poison and grief both. And it had stretched into the stars...

Life. 

Life arose on basic compounds.

Life died in natural process. 

There had been so much life. He'd watched many lifeforms and planets form, grow, flourish, and fade during his eons outside the realm. Some life transformed to civilizations. Civilizations rose, burned out, ascended. They were not meant to be eradicated. They were not meant to have their resources stolen, their lives trampled, their society manipulated with threat of genocide. There had once been so much life; life, noise, transmissions crossing paths so often, a plane of sound. There was so much silence now. So many had their voices cut off in death. So many others had cut their own voices off to keep their world from drawing attention. One species, a civilization that had been still bound to their planet, he watched in interest called it the Great Silence. They knew how common life ought to be and puzzled over the lack of transmissions, signs, visible when they scanned the stars. He found it a fitting name. A Great Silence caused by a Great War. Those that lived on still lived in fear and quiet, unwilling to drag the unhalted wrath of the cybertronian war their way. To those still planet bound, it seemed the universe was empty. To those who had once known a galaxy of life before the alien war had bathed a hundred systems in bloods, an empty universe seemed preferable. Anything to avoid the threat, the tragedy, the destruction wreaked by this one planet's seemingly everlasting war.

Civilizations still existed even in the wake the war's conclusion. They were banded in federations that acted proud of their state until the mere threat of cybertronian war edged too close to where they'd been forgotten. Neutral stations or worlds, bars and markets, trading routes- they existed still, but they felt so muted. 

Cybertronians had created that great silence among their galaxy. And now their counterpart civilization had entered the galactic scene.

It seemed unfair to generalize based on origin. They came from Unicron, yes, but he had come from Primus once and how similar was he to that creator? Their origin was not an automatic basis for fault. It was the actions, the traits, the collective mind- that, he would judge. That, he had already made his assumption of. He predicted they would be as their brother species were.

He assumed that humans would be like cybertronians.

And cybertronians had waged war on the galaxy for nine million stellar cycles. They had wreaked devastation, tragedy; they were prone to wars, to cheating, to theft and crime. 

They were children of Primus.

How much better could children of Unicron be?

He reminded himself to avoid drawing a conclusion yet and yet he had drawn one to start with.

She would be so disappointed in rash actions. Or would so long as they came from him. She'd always been full of rash actions of her own and rarely judged herself. 

Her rash actions tended to save lives or distill tension or otherwise beneficial tradeoffs to not thinking actions over.

His had shot that fatal energy through her spark.

She would be so disappointed if he moved too quickly.

So, for her sake, he would seek out both gods and their spawn in question. It was not a visit he would sustain for long without the proper tools, but the world he had long ago trapped himself inside of was willing to allow those visits. It, too, wanted to avoid the tragedy of the cybertronian war. 

He would seek out answers to his assumptions.

But- even if he were to find one good- it would take far fewer threats to convince him of the justification of his plan.

She would fade if he won. 

That almost caused him pause.

His visit pushed, waiting; this world pressed him to slip out. 

_Are you ready?_

No. 

It would mean sacrificing all of the others: The eleven that he had betrayed so unfairly. The one who had ruined all thirteen of them. And the one that he had murdered in a fit of wrongful passion.

Was he ready? Could he ever be?

But he had steeled himself. He had tried to steel himself for millennia and never found those exits required to do something more than watch. Watch as the galaxy bled. Watch as Unicron's spawn were lifted to the galactic level. Watch as a world fragile from ceaseless wars and genocide allowed two forces of danger to reach out for them. 

He was not ready to cause her oblivion. 

He was steeled to do it regardless. She would- he dreamed- forgive him. She'd forgiven him once before. She could forgive this now.

_Yes. Ready._

It was time to reach out.

It was time to regain entrance to a world he had existed outside of for so long.


	2. Primus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fallen speaks to the core of his former world without expecting answer.  
> Primus's autobot sentry awakens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First two scenes occur during the war. Last two occur after its finish.  
> Windblade here is a mixture of RID15, Cyberverse, and a touch of IDW1. Cityspeaking here functions mainly on what was seen in TFC. There's not really any evidence that RID Windblade is a cityspeaker but assumptions are allowed in fanfic, no?  
> No chapter warnings other than Megatronus being rather unreliable in his POV. And also planning to genocide a bunch of people, as was evident in the prologue.

The core of Cybertron was also the living core of Cybertron's creator.

Once a site of magnificence and supernatural power, the core and its spark seemed a flicker from fading offline completely.

It wasn't as if he thought the being invincible. Primus had created them to dispose of a similar cosmic force and they had done their task, after all. Neither god could be traditionally killed, but the Thirteen had still fought Unicron to a point of victory. If it could be done to the planet eater and those other faded universal forces, it stood to reason that such an inglorious fate could befall Primus as well.

It was still startling to see the living core so closed to death.

Perhaps his presence was sensed by Primus now. He was not physically at the location- he was not even physically on that plane of being- but Primus had few dimensional restrictions. His Primes did not either. They could hear the god's voice, see past and present, experience visions and hear messages and feel the glimpses of those worlds moving parallel to their own. To be a Prime meant living in a state that those creations following after did not. Access to the Matrix of Leadership allowed others later to ascend to that state of being, to hear the wisdom and visions and unlife of the original Thirteen. 

Even from a place that limited all communication with his original world, he could still make due with limited interaction. And even with his barrier, Primus could likely still see that interaction.

So he spoke.

He couldn't help it. There had been so few opportunities to speak to another. For an eon after his exile began, he had merely explored the known and unknown universe. Then, he had found another world, another dimensional plane and his exile had led him in. There had been no true chances for conversation after that point. The benefactors of that place allowed him these slips, these windows in, these ways to manifest for the people of the world he'd left behind- but they did not speak with him. Not true speech. Not his. 

Primus did not speak back, but why would it matter? It was still a chance to be heard. After all he had done to watch and consider, he needed a sounding board. 

"You are so close," he had murmured as he neared the core that his incorporeal visit could not touch. "Even the allspark is gone from you now. You are so very close to death."

The death of his creator.

The death of the god he'd been made to serve before falling away from his command through a murder and clinical fascination on the mechanics of the planetary devourer he was meant to destroy.

Even now, he had not lost that fascination. Even now, when he knew through hindsight what that interest had done to his relationship and standing with the other Primes and knew how their suspicions helped the manipulations and falling and killings between them to occur.

"Your children have killed you," the fallen Prime tried to slip closer even they still were separated by a barrier he could not surpass. "They have killed their world. The populations here. And not even paused there."

It seemed that Primus grieved. It was impossible to tell. There were no words to say as much and the field was muted by their barrier. 

"I can't help but-..."

Even then, he cut off. It was vocalizing a desire, a thought, that felt criminal to even consider. Megatronus spoke it regardless.

"I can't help but think. It is all I am left to do. Think and observe, observe and consider."

The visitor hovered nearer still to the faintly living spark. He could reach out and touch it now if he were _just there_. Just there again. Just a part of the world he was trapped watching. 

"I've observed this war from its start to your flickering life now," he muttered. "And it has become increasingly easy for me to say that I wish it had not started. I wish something could be done to keep it from beginning. There have been forty-four extinctions of fully sentient life thus far."

He'd never been the most thoughtful of the Thirteen, but he had grown _attached_ to those civilizations. Trapped outside the realm, he'd had nothing to do but watch life form and grow and these little organisms developing became something worth attaching to. It let him feel involved. Happy, even, to watch their progress. Maybe the others would call it a hobby. Maybe the others would call him the worst of titles for even considering what he was considering. But they had not seen these lives struggle past the earliest stages of civilization evolution and push into societies of excellence and innovation. They had not seen these lives killed in the crossfire between two factions; in the purposeful, gleeful genocides of fanatics; in the stealing and harvesting of resources they needed to survive and the armies needed only for comfort. They had not _seen_. He had done nothing but _see_ for eons. In time, they would have begun _considering_ as well. 

"You will die. Your children will continue this razing of each other and the galaxy. And even if they live on to repopulate, they have shown that they are more than capable of repeating it all. And I- I cannot help but think that this universe would have been better off without any of us. Without you."

Maybe it offended the being. Maybe it made him grieve further, apologize, drown further in the guilt of a dormant god responsible for the creations wreaking havoc on the galaxy.

"So how can I do it?" he whispered to a creator that he had banished himself from long before. "What can be done to destroy you completely? This slow poisoning, it is not right. It is not right. And this poisoning of the galaxy, it is not right either. How do I do it? How do I cut this pain from existing further?"

Primus gave no answer.

Or perhaps he had. 

But Megatronus had exiled himself from the being after murdering his lover. He had cut all words of condemnation or forgiveness from his audials and he could not bear to let them in now.

So he would speak to the dying creator to merely hear his own thoughts aloud and to, perhaps, provide the being with the comfort that something _would_ be done to cease the brutality above once his core had gone too dormant to watch the tragedy any longer.

* * *

Windblade had been in the ending leg of a battle when it happened.

The autobots had been winning it when she left. They'd been pit up against the remainders of some shattered combiner team and a group of grunts. Maybe she once would have felt horror at picking off ragtag decepticon survivors in a battle that never needed to happen. Maybe as a much, much younger camien ambassador. Windblade couldn't summon that guilt up anymore. 

The cityspeaker had been an autobot soldier for thousands of vorns now. She fought alongside Optimus Prime himself. She did recall beginning this war with a jumpy presence, with panic attacks after winning a lethal fight, with regret over killing and causing pain. She did vaguely remember a more pacifistic cybertronian, caught up with her camien amicas in a conviction that the autobot cause was worth setting aside that pacifism for. But she could barely recall that. The thoughts were unrelatable, foreign, to her now. They held no place in the Windblade she was now. 

So she'd seen the decepticon squadron from the air and the lieutenant present at that time ordered an attack she followed through with neither guilt or hesitation. 

The two small teams had met in a ravine. All were exhausted. All carried injuries already. All rallied up to attack regardless. 

She'd cut through opponents with her blades, dropped them with kicks, or sliced with deployable turbines- all typically normal battle fare. Until her mind had fallen through and she had transformed without reason. Weapons sheathed, she'd flown fast from the practically-won battlefield without so much as a comm of warning or explanation to the autobots behind. 

Or rather, she supposed as she struggled to come to terms with the situation, her _body_ had flown fast from the scene.

It wasn't like _she_ had.

It was a trance. Her mind fought to think past itself, to remind her that thinking independently was in fact a perk she had, and all this internal chatter lay subdued over the thing moving her deeper into the Well. It was uncannily similar to the trance entered when she joined with a titan, but- 

-but stronger still. 

It seemed oxymoronic to call any force stronger than a titan. Whether a starship or a cityformer, they were the greatest forces any cybertronian had ever stumbled across. Even those felled early in the war and remolded to the will of whatever faction retrieved their body still inspired awe and terror from all those that witnessed them. Even when none knew of their origins as titans, they commanded that primal respect. A camien by forging, she had long understood that fact and familiarized herself with the trancelike state of cityspeaker.

This did seem so very alike to that.

This was a power that held none of the shape that a titan would. She could not search the thing in her mind for details on it. Despite this, there was a soothing undertone to the trance that no experience with a titan had given her before.

It couldn't even be called frightening through that soothing peace.

Besides, she couldn't exactly fight it. She would keep her guard up, but there was no reason to push pointlessly against a feeling of total, controlling, peace, like a...

Windblade went quiet after that. An epiphany without evidence swept her attention as a whole and she satisfied herself with watching as her frame tore through the air to the Well and dove into the poisoned core. 

She felt shockingly unfazed, considering the warning and mission being assigned to her before she was teleported halfway across the galaxy in an instant.

* * *

The allspark was a thing of beauty. It was pure. But sparks alone were not. This would spawn more life infinitely. 

More sparks meant more capability to repeat all that had been done before. A thing of collective purity would darken the universe for eons longer. 

Megatronus had watched the allspark as it was returned to a healed core. He had watched new life and old life grow and develop cities, countries, travel, on the planet in the stellar cycles after this sudden end to a prolonged war. 

A part of him watched just to see his thoughts proven correct. Another did so to feel at least some relief at the contentment of the survivors as they lived on.

For how long would they stay content?

How long would it be before the planet razed again?

Megatronus had watched the allspark, but he had split attention with another world, another people, as well. They had no collective allspark. Their creator had an antispark and invited none of his spawn in to join him there. Primus was undoubtedly the more responsible creator in comparison. 

The antispark was hardly a counterpart to the allspark, but it had a quality of its own that had drawn his focus. He had known long ago that an interest in his opponent was not a sign of betrayal to his cause: it was scouting, analyzing, a search for weakness and any qualities that could be assimilated. It was an interest that had finally given him exactly what he needed.

He had found a way to kill a god.

Two of them at once, in fact.

Two beings that spawned a planet and a population both.

They hardly came from a singular source-

They hardly would have tied themselves together-

It had been coincidence, really. Primus had lain in the path that Unicron had been devouring and their feud had started by this chance factor. Yet, despite the chance of it all, they consisted of similar material. They both operated on a state of transformation on the physical field and of energy in the infeasible. Their energy functioned as a deadly contrast. One material would annihilate the other if the sources of their energy forms were ever to touch in the physical plane. A spark. A, oh so creatively named by his fellow Primes, 'antispark'. Primus and Unicron no doubt had uncovered the deadly truth sitting behind that otherwise inconspicuous fact. Why else had they fought through proxies? Why else did they fight on an energy plane but never draw each other's sparks to the location of the other? Because to do such a thing would equal a state of nonmatter. Nonexistence. An eradication of all there was before the fatal contact. Matter and its antimatter could not have contact, no matter their origins.

Megatronus had known that an interest in the enemy would pay off. Had he blinded himself to Unicron and his human spawn, he would have missed this discovery. And this discovery had allowed him a hope. 

A hope that he would not have to stay trapped and watch as a war was repeated, as resources were stolen, as cybertronians and humanity took their new alliance and trampled markets, worlds, peoples. 

He would not have to watch again.

He had realized a means to end that chance now.

The fallen Prime retraced a dance he'd acted in millennia before. Still only a ghost of a visitor, he visited the core of Cybertron to stare at the allspark where it rested, retrieved, alive, there. He hovered unseen- though he suspected Primus could sense him there- to stare at its beauty

Somewhere in that mass of lives was the spark of the Prime he'd once so wrongly killed. The mech floated close and reached out as if he could find her. It was, of course, impossible. Even now. Even with the ascension this trap of a dimension allowed him. 

She would dissipate with all others if he succeeded. The good and the bad would all be wiped clean indiscriminately. With the allspark gone, all the Thirteen would be as well.

"I'm sorry-" he spoke in the presence of the allspark and Primus both. "I am sorry, my love. But it must be done."

It seemed that the allspark surged in response. He was imagining things, of course. 

"And Primus." Megatronus hovered upwards to gesture at the core of his creator. 

The energy plane roiled. That was also likely his imagination, he told himself. Not there, not a response, all false. It still stung him to his core. He had reason for his plan. He had reason. There was no need to grow so threatening, so offended at the suggestion that Primus and his people had to be erased.

"You know what it is like to be faced with horrific choices," he argued to a being that had said nothing to earn the comment as a reply. "You know the value of life. Surely, you accept-"

The state of the energy field surrounding him inside the well suggested otherwise.

"There are far more out there than just yourself," Megatronus snapped out to any of the sparks. It was hardly a discriminatory comment. "The value of life extends past the allspark here. You may not accept it-"

And, by the feel of the world compressing in on him, Primus did not.

"-but removing you, all of you, from this universe is a victory."

Primus had made his original Thirteen for victory, had he not? Megatronus may have fallen from their ranks, but he still remembered the importance of a goal fought for til its realization. 

"There is a loss, such loss-"

This beautiful conglomeration of sparks- gone.

Those flaming still- extinguished.

Solus's and his and their creator's- erased. Never again to think, to feel- never again to murder and manipulate and destroy.

He deserved nothing more.

Those that started that long war deserved nothing more.

All those in the crossfire...

It would hardly cause them pain. There would never be pain again.

He would not even be aware enough as a voided being to look at the galaxy and see it grow in safety. 

"-but it will be worth the gain. Accept it or do not," Megatronus flashed a smile on his energy form. "Your acceptance will not affect me. This will be done."

The fallen Prime ended his venture and fell back into the dimensional darkness he had long been trapped in.

He _would_ see this plan to victory.

He had only to acquire the tools to leave this place and do so.

* * *

With a start, she sat upright. 

The action sent a mound of dust shifting off of her. Dust? Windblade lifted her servos out of the granules to pat at the particles left on her frame. Scrap, she was a mess. It looked like she hadn't been washed and waxed in vorns. What a-...

Something felt very wrong.

The camien considered her last thought before the dread had dropped on her. Something about vorns since cleaning up, why had it...Without considering it, she flicked her internal chronometer on. For such a quick and carefree action, its result was dramatic. Windblade froze in all movements. Although, ironically, if this chronometer reading was correct, she had been frozen up for...Wow. Well. 

As the shock of learning that she was missing several millennias worth of time subdued under rationalizing calm, the flyer tried to recall why, exactly, she'd spent the last two million stellar cycles in stasis on- by the feel of the dust underneath her- some organic world. Her memory cores strained to find those details. After a stasis of that length, it was inevitable difficult on her systems to online all cores and processing centers at once. Taking it slower would likely be a smarter choice. Windblade had the habit of being too impatient to really consider smarter choices. Besides, she wasn't _moving_ yet. That had to count for something when it came to taking onlining step by step. 

A gust of wind blew more dust on her. No doubt her old friends would laugh at the sight she made. Who knew if any of those friends were still alive after this stasis? 

When she found whoever had decided to do this to...

Oh.

Her memory files booted up. They weren't corrupted, but they hardly acted in the ordinary. They were tainted. Because she had been nigh-unconscious after that battle. Carried by a force stronger than any other into the spark of Primus and told-

_-a danger-_

_-a threat to two worlds-_

_-coming, in millennia-_

_-hoping to erase-_

_-cunning, passionate-_

_-would not stop searching for a weapon-_

_-a way-_

A way to kill her world and its inhabitants. The inhabitants of any colony, if any remained. 

A threat that sought to destroy them all.

A vision shared to her with the command to wait as a sentinel for the cycle to come when this threat reentered their world.

And now she was that sentinel. Awake, stranded, on a world where this old danger would descend to start his mad plan. 

It was...rather much to take in. 

Oh Primus.

Windblade's reeling mind stopped short as she barked out a laugh. Thankfully, this odd organic desert was too empty for that to bring notice. She couldn't have helped the burst of mirth, audience or not. "Primus" indeed.


	3. Unicron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatronus makes a visit to the other immortal spark he plans to snuff.  
> Orion Pax receives an unexpected message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline wise, this chapter occurs closely before Damned If I Do.

In sharp contrast to the living core of Cybertron, Earth was dull. Almost dead. Nearly stifling. 

They'd let him visit, as he had been allowed his meetings with Primus. It was the first time he had come so near to the spark substitute of the planet eater. Even when the last of the Primes had come to this core with his sworn enemy and team to fight the awakening of the vengeful god, he had merely watched from afar. Watched teamwork shift to obstinance, determination, sacrifice- betrayal. How predictable. Any who had watched those two for the duration of their war could have seen that ending coming.

During that fight, Unicron had lived. This core was no doubt thrumming with that life, that power, that malicious need to defend against invading presences.

During the present, Unicron had nothing of the like. The core was emptied. The being had sent his energy form with the shell of the warlord to Cybertron and that form had been imprisoned. There were only the remains now. The remainders left behind, the strains, the pulsing presence of the antispark.

It was the only confirmation he needed.

If remnants of the antispark remained here, then he would not need to sit atop the former reliquary of the allspark to enact his plan. He could stand on one world or the other. He could win against the impossible.

Just as he had won against this god once before. Together, with his brethren- never once hesitating against the sheer scope of Primus's mission for them. He remembered their opponent from that time. It seemed that Unicron- what was left of him here within his hollow spark chamber- remembered that as well. When he had first manifested in the central core, he had noted the weak thrum of those leftover energy strains. They picked up, pulsing, angry. 

He had never talked with the thing he'd been made to destroy.

In doing it for this first time, he couldn't help but taunt. Some of the other Thirteen would disapprove. Honor fueling some, disapproval for time wasted fueling others. Then there were those who would join right alongside him. Solus would have. They could have watched the defeated power rage against their words while they both stood untouchable. 

That, of course, hardly mattered now. It could hardly happen now. So instead he manifested as best they let him and played as though he could touch the floor of the chamber room with ghostly pedes. 

"What a fool you were."

The mech strolled around the emptied core and saw the strains of the antispark within the sensitive metal of the chamber. Enough to feed the device he needed. Not enough to let this creature rise again. 

"You thought yourself a god and were brought low by the creations of another. Primus did not even need to defeat you himself," Megatronus almost smiled. "He had us. We were enough to lock you in stasis for eons."

There were those angry strains as well. How familiar. Unicron had always been an angry sort. Cold, cruel, tactical, but easily blinded in rage. And how familiar that set of qualities was to he himself. 

That did not matter either. The irreversible atrocities he'd committed in blinded rage were not here nor there. 

Megatronus left the illusion of strolling behind to hover over the sad puddle of a spark.

"You spawned quite a fun set of creations," he started up again, this time more neutrally than his vindication had been. "I heard you call them parasites, however, rather than accepting your role in creating them. Ironic how these 'parasites' run free while you're trapped here."

That earned anger as well. A reminder of just how trapped, how defeated, this powerful being was. Never to rise again while the creations he'd never planned on spawning and cared little for the life of- the ultimate plan of transforming to his dangerous physical form would have displaced all life on this planet's surface- ran free. 

Irony never did pay the prideful well. He knew that just as well as Unicron did now.

"I'm searching for tools," Megatronus changed subjects.

It earned no interest. 

He could not stop a smile from crawling forward. It would earn interest soon enough. This being, like Primus, was no doubt full of self preservation.

"You likely won't know the details themselves. You haven't been aware of most technological changes, in stasis as you were."

Another spiteful pulse of offense. 

"But I can tell you what they will be for," the fallen Prime lowered a voice that was not even truly spoken. "I will need a gateway. An arch- this dimension to your own. And I will need a much simpler tool than such a dimensional gateway: I will need a spark fuser. One strong enough to reach from planet to planet."

And now there was that interest.

But mere remnants of a powerful force could do nothing to act on that instinct. They could not speak, could not attack, could not even reach out to the 'parasites' above.

"No directions to offer?" Megatronus continued to smile. "A pity, then. I will need to find someone more willing to recover what I need."

The grin faded away while the visitor pretended to think.

"What of your spawn? They will not know the threat these items will pose their existence."

As expected, there was hardly any familial rage built at the threat to the humans. There was only anger- at being trapped, at being helpless to stop what his uncared for creations could if they were not oblivious...there was much to be angry over and none of it would stall Megatronus.

"I should pay them a visit, shouldn't I?" he spoke easily as he moved away from the ruined spark chamber. "No doubt they will be more talkative than you."

After all, as long as most of his antispark was trapped within the Reliquary of the Primes, the being he spoke to was hardly even _here_ to respond to him.

* * *

It should have been in a museum or a crypt to rest. It was a hallmark of shedding energon; a blade once used by Prima to cut down the opponents of his people at that time; a sword used to end the war. The latter of which was its final need. It had been forged for bloodshed and it ended the Great War with one last spill of life fluids. 

But the star saber had become a signature of Optimus Prime, it seemed. Cybertronians wanted to see the mech in his glory, his strength, the safety that offered. Orion Pax kept the weapon near him to give these people that image desired.

Without the matrix of leadership, he could hardly be that Prime any longer. Without the matrix, the mystical energies of relics such as this could hardly speak to him as they had to Optimus.

And he did live without the matrix. Its merging with the allspark and return to Primus had forever ended the device and the line of the Primes in one move. 

So when the cycle arrived in which Orion found the star saber thrumming behind him in its ornamental holster, the former archivist nearly glitched.

Instead, he had retreated from the public and found the nearest private room to comm Ratchet.

Ratchet, unfortunately, had little answers to offer. He was "not some kind of expert in the mystic", after all. He gave out theories and suggestions, but both of them were merely guessing at that point. 

After the call, Orion left the room and made his way to an upstairs archive. It was rarely used in comparison to the main library downstairs and he felt that he would avoid interruptions here. They could have been avoided in many other rooms as well, but he felt secure in an archive. With the stress of this unexpected event, he needed some security. 

Then- as prepared as he could have been- Orion pulled the star saber free.

The effects were less instantaneous as they had been when he was Optimus. Then, he could merely hold the handle and receive a message from Alpha Trion. Now, he held it and waited. 

There was something. The thrumming power from earlier had not been by accident. Relics were often used as conduits for messages by energies that could not speak through more traditionally mortal means. This aside, the message he did receive through slips and flashes was quickly compared to that which Optimus had received from Alpha Trion. The difference was clear. With the matrix, a message from Alpha Trion or other visions likewise came through in full clarity through contact with the relic. This message or vision was muted. Clouded. He could not distinguish a voice. He could not hear details. It was almost surprising that he could see anything at all.

But Orion did. Shapes, flashing, all as muted but distinguishable enough: Earth. The shadow of a seeker that he thought he may recognize but could not see enough of to know. The outline of a mech he did not remember ever seeing before. The latter two hardly were helpful. The former image gave, at the least, a starting place. 

The absolute surprise of the message in the first place had Orion nervous. Something that should not be occurring any longer was occurring once more- and occurring nearly five stellar cycles since he had relinquished the matrix of leadership permanently. 

What did it mean?

Surely, visions were not limited to Primes. Visionary data transfers through relics had occurred multiple recorded times. Even data cylinders- like the one that had almost rewritten Bulkhead's mind on Earth- were but the technological advancing projections of these recorded incidents. With the matrix, this message would have been clear. He could have heard the wisdom of the Primes, could have heard Primus's words directly. As it was...

He knew what he had to do.

Orion set the star saber aside in its holster and left his research and meditation on the situation behind. This was a matter of urgency. If Primus wished to stress something on he, a mere archivist (though recently so much more, however strange it was for Orion's mind to grasp that fully), then it was a 'something' that deserved priority. Any threat to this peace was one that he would not stand by and wait for.

He had to go to Earth. 

The thought echoed repeatedly as he left the archive and walked through the halls. They were emptied at the moment, with only a few passing mechs to nod at on his way, but they felt lively. For now, in the least. Jazz and his hallway music would be quieting later. He didn't know it yet; but when Orion delivered the news, he'd be falling out of this lively role to retreat to one of the many hideouts. It was his typical move whenever the Prime-in-name-only left for the cycle. Old habits died hard and Jazz rather liked to keep an optic on the other inhabitants of the capital center. It gave him peace of mind; moreso than the joy of playing music or changing the lights of a corridor neurotically on a certain mech or two until they yelled at the walls. Most just assumed that Jazz went quiet during Orion's departures because he went with the mech. Most did not know Jazz.

Perhaps...For a moment, he considered bringing the former spy with him to Earth. He trusted his old friend's combat capabilities and did not much trust his own, even with the lifetime of memories backing it. But he did not yet know what dangers he may be in and, until he had concrete threats to list, Jazz would want to stay and watch his many cameras. Or however many had not been found, disabled, and replaced by Soundwave.

Speaking of...

He'd need to find the mech responsible for Soundwave's continued presence in the capital. As much as Megatron claimed to be a puppet leader- a fact he never even tried to contest-, he still was a rather vital figurehead. To leave without warning would be highly irresponsible of Orion. So he carried himself down to the ground floor with the star saber still uncomfortably resting against his back and found the room where his coleader-for-show-only was working.

The mech turned when his door slid open. Orion offered only a moment before cutting to the point.

"The star saber has activated," he explained quickly. "It should not have, but it has. I received a message through it and I-...I need to go investigate it."

Gray optics widened. 

"How?" the other mech began. "What did it say?" 

'Say' wasn't quite the word for it. But he supposed that those who never had the Primehood wouldn't have the experience to know what descriptors applied. Even with the memories of Optimus's experiences with the relic, he hardly knew how to explain it.

"I saw Earth," Orion answered. "I-I think-"

Wrong, _wrong_ , there was no more of this _'thinking'_ ; he was a leader, he was determined, he was not insecure in his thoughts; he gave declarations, not stutters. 

"I have to go there," he corrected. "I fear, if Primus is reaching out, that there is a threat I am being warned of."

And that was entirely what he 'thought'. It was entirely what he _knew_. What Optimus would have known, had he been there.

It meant leaving behind everything he was in the middle of right then. Thankfully, there was not much. There had only been one large and demanding treaty taking their time in the last few orns and, outside of that treatise, it had been a bit slow in the capital.

"I'll leave this cycle," he finished.

It seemed that the declaration was not approved of. 

"But the carcerians..." Megatron protested. 

Carcer was a touchy subject. The treatise they had rushed to make was, indeed, something of a priority. Still, all of Optimus's experience suggested that the mystic was just as much a priority.

"You'll need to take care of it," Orion said.

It didn't seem to please the other.

"The policy will need to be taken to Vos-"

"You can take it. I need to go to Earth," the former Prime interrupted. Both leaders stared each other down at it. It should have been intimidating, Orion thought absently; during his last life, Megatron had towered over him. There had been a dangerous excitement in that size and a safety it brought- at least before the betrayal. But now, he wore Optimus's frame. They shared that dangerous size. They shared that dangerous strength. It was still something Orion had difficulty adjusting to.

Ironically, even with a change as great as that, he still felt much like he always had.

And Orion had always been a determined sort.

If he felt compelled by this relic to go to Earth, he would be doing just that.


	4. Goals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatronus sets his sights on a human ally. Windblade tries to decipher her memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. I'm working on four different writing projects right now, but I'm hoping to update this one more regularly than I have for the last week.

After the visit to Unicron, he withdrew to his frame- or what constituted it here- and let his observation span the planet before him.

The ideal help would be a human with access to technology, both Earthly or otherwise. A businessman, then, seemed likely. A manager of technology. If not, then someone who had access through a hobby or intrinsic love. The former would be preferable. Not just for access, but for their likely personhood. A promise of otherworldly power, an edge on the market, a position among the businesses of the stars- they would be more likely to follow his requests in secrecy, blinded by the promises enough to not spread around news of his presence.

Human days, weeks, passed as he looked. Time was a fluid concept from this place he was trapped in, but there was no reversing its passing. It was an added helplessness. There was no time now to mourn or rage against it. He continued his search and found viable candidates. Their access to proper tools weighed against their actions in their job history and their vocal presence in human media. Finally, his attention passed over the human city of Chicago and he saw a match to his search.

There.

A perfect mixture of self important naivety and technological access. The latter was a given fact. The former was, granted, an assumption. It seemed from the surface that this human would be willing to do harm for money, for a sense of protection and importance that would seemingly elevate him above other humans. This was the type of man who would visit extraplanetary markets and swindle others, run business away, pay for harm and possibly death all to fuel his growing empire. Not an outright soldier or murderer, but that made his capacity for harm all the more dangerous, did it not?

This was, again, an assumption. Face value. Prima facie. Perhaps even his own bias rather than a face value at all. 

So he needed to get closer.

To test.

To see. 

And if this human was not the dangerous egotist he seemed, perhaps Megatronus would reconsider. Or, at the least, find a different human to get his devices built. It was unfair to lead an innocent to their own destruction. It was far more digestible to lead one who took promises of fame and riches without care for others to their ending.

The idea that he could find reasons to stall gave him dread that he did not want to acknowledge.

To stop meant to give up on the one method he had found that could prevent the war and its genocides. To stop meant to give up on his meaning for leaving this dimension, for however short a span of time the archway would allow him to. It would mean-

The thoughts were shook off.

He was not sure what it would mean, but it was something to despair- a crushing of hope, of purpose, of drive.

For now, he would make conversation with the human of his choice and begin his test. If this man was not the megalomaniac he appeared as, Megatronus would address his part in the plan. Until then, he would continue. 

He knew- in part- that he would continue regardless.

* * *

Alright.

This place was...weird. She supposed that was a word for it. Maybe not the best word, maybe not a flattering one, but it was the first clear consensus she could come up with. Even after transforming and spending some time in careful flight, Windblade was still stuck in a dusty span of nothing. Maybe this was an unpopulated desert world? A literal dustball, with nothing but searing heat at the equator and ice caps on the dusty rocks of the poles? That would be rather unpleasant. But if Primus needed her here, it wasn't like she had an alternative. Still, it'd be nice if it was populated enough to have some kind of spaceport. She didn't want to be trapped here forever.

Flying at a leisurely pace (what? she was hardly a full fledged seeker capable of their infamous speed and besides she was playing it safe by investigating slowly; it had nothing to do with her disorientation from a recently lifted stasis), she caught sight of enough civilization and vegetation to relieve her concerns.

There were a few sorts of buildings, from what she could see in the air. They had signs with some glyphs of some kind on them. Windblade had flown behind a dune of more organic dust and hid there looking out at a more isolated one of these buildings. There were two vehicles parked in their own of five rows and a few more behind the building. Without language know-how, she couldn't figure out why _these_ vehicles were at _this_ building. So she let herself scan over the radio-waves in the air and atmosphere and- ...bingo. A network. A global web. 

The camien smiled from her position behind the dune and turned this new-found data on her mystery civilization.

It said out front GAS STATION. A quick search explained what that meant, what the vehicles were called, and why the local life here used them. 

Oh. And the local life itself. 

That was always pretty good to know about a new place. From what she'd gleaned on their web, they went with the name _humans_ and dominated the planet as the only found sentient life. It was a little odd to Windblade, as used as she was to the many cybertronians that were sentient- from insecticons to seacons and all the other many different species that sparked out of the Well. In truth, there was rarely any life found on Cybertron that _didn't_ have intelligence and transformation. Being forged on Caminus rather than the homeworld had given her an early look at a planet that didn't have such a standard sentience. It was still odd to see this planet's spread of life, but she'd adjust to it.

With that out of the way, she had more major concerns to deal with. First and foremost, could she just walk up to a human settlement like this gas station? Her wartime instincts said no, calmly outvoicing her younger instinctual response to just waltz right up. New planets and civilizations had all kinds of war codes and protocols in place and Ultra Magnus would peel her paint off (if he was alive) if she blew cybertronian existence wide open for a young race.

Back again to the web then. There was hardly anything else to do. She could sit in this dust all cycle thinking or she could sit here researching further. A warrior always needed to know their surroundings, setting- it prepared them against the ill prepared. And she was never ill prepared. 

(Except for, a sardonic part of her mind piped, Primus himself knocking her into stasis after a cryptic vision and teleporting her to this Earth place)

Ahem. Windblade frowned externally, even if the source of her irritation was completely internal. The mental comment was unnecessary. She would have dropped everything for Primus's mission even without the trance enforcing it. This place wasn't some random planet. It was the source of a great battle, a battle for the fates of-

-of Cybertron and this planet Earth.

...of Primus and Unicron both. 

The thought of helping, however subtly, the ancient enemy of her people unsettled her. But if Primus thought it necessary...

Her frown grew as Windblade wracked her memories for details. She needed to be ready. She needed to remember the threat. She needed...she couldn't. It was vague. The vision had been vague. She had nothing concrete to weigh on. 

Alright.

Alright, this was workable. This was all workable. 

All she needed first was a list of what she _did_ know.

There'd been some sort of shadowy figure in the vision. They were large, distinctive chevron or horns on the silhouetted head, intimidating in bulk and size- but, she noted, not donned in the kaonite ornaments that the decepticon leader was nor rigged with the kibble of dangerous triple changers or six phasers. This was an unknown, not a recognizable decepticon. And she knew, she just knew, this figure was the threat, but she just didn't remember what their name was.

The figure had held something. A pole. A device. Pointed up at the sky and down at the ground both. Wait. Maybe the device had been the threat? She'd just consider both the danger.

There had been Earth. That focus was no doubt why Primus had sent her to this planet. 

There'd been energy. Spark energy. An energy she could feel hot, searing, the edge of oblivion, through the vision. Maybe that was the danger then. Primus, couldn't this be clearer?

What else, what else...

There was that other device. It arched up through the fog in detail, dangerous detail- an archway, a gateway, a **_gateway_**.

She couldn't let it open.

She could not let it be constructed and she could not allow its activation.

That was what Primus had sent her here for. 

Now, what that archway was made of, where it would be made, when it would be constructed, where it would lead to, who would be stepping out- that was all unknown for now. Still, she could work with this. She could find what she needed on the human network and start mapping where the most likely locations of this event would occur. 

This was workable, she thought again.

Her next thought was spent wondering if there were any decepticons on this planet to scrap as a distraction from this mess she'd gotten herself dumped into. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope to see you in the comments!


	5. Obsolescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A human businessman feels that he's dragging behind in the worldwide- now extraplanetary- competition. An unexplained break-in gives him bigger things to worry about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To all of you who comment, thanks! Comments help me keep on top of updates.

Dylan Gould had just finished a decent day. He couldn't exactly call it great- too many pain in the ass customers and not enough pay- but it was far from a poor one. The rain outside had kept to a minimum, the humidity had been annoying, and the temperature had been tolerable. A little on the biting side for late summer, but nothing worth pitching a fit over. The car ride to his office had let him stay out of the atmosphere anyway and Carly had let him into his workplace professionally. She did strive to be professional, no matter if the framed photographs in his office showed enough hikes and other outings to disprove the illusion. Still, he wasn't here to see his secretary. He was here to convince his investors to keep investing and his buyers to remain buying with him and otherwise continue the struggle of managing his business empire when there were literal alien temptations drawing them away.

It pissed him off, really. 

Five years ago and he was on the top. He had competition, but he was, undoubtedly, a competitor. He was a part of a worldwide market. Hotchkiss Gould Investments had never lacked for customers. His exotic car collection brought in good sales. Vehicles, top of the line, transportation- he had the best of the best. Or, at the least, the _good-enough-to-pass-as-that_. As someone who was far from scientifically minded, he'd never been one of the nerdy kids that messed around with engineering and tinkering. With or without that physical touch, he had always liked seeing the results of that tinkering. He liked his toys to push limits, after all. He liked to have the toys that no one else had. It wasn't exactly a desire that he'd lost in maturity. 

His father had put every stake into this company. His father had taken every risk, made every deal, crushed every opponent. The unsavory was worth it, if the payoff was needed. An unscrupulous ally was worth it if they offered the win. Safety was better than loyalty and what was safer than sitting on the top? 

He rather took after his father in many ways. Even twelve years since the man had died, Dylan did him proud by following those footsteps. He kept up that familial loyalty by making the company the force his father had pushed it towards being. 

And then 2013 came. 

That year had shaken the entire world. There was no contesting that fact. Other landmark moments- the shot heard round the world, the nuclear revolution, the moon landing...what did they have that could compete with the irreversible announcement that humanity was confirmed to share its universe with other sentient civilizations? It was terrifying and thrilling and Dylan barely remembered those early days. 

There'd been the metal bugs that had razed towns and cities and left him quaking. It seemed the nearest he'd ever reached to death by anxiety. Chicago was a large city. It could be razed. He could die. And those insectoid creatures hardly seemed like the type that would reason with him over some sort of offer in exchange for survival. Sell his soul? Sell out all of his subordinates? They'd probably eat him without understanding a word he said.

Shockingly, things didn't even get that much better after the rest of them were revealed. Some metal men showed up in Arizona, a sentient jet was sighted in Europe with a metal dragon, more of the insects. And gradually- or maybe all at once- the details came out.

Press conferences, broadcasted speeches, websites devoted solely to explaining these 'cybertronians', all of it. All of it was there to change the world yet again.

On the bright side, it revealed that these aliens could be reasoned with. Anything that could be reasoned with were already a step up from mindless brutes. And the possibilities! The childish glee at all these opened doors!

There was a whole government on this planet that had rushed into a treaty with Earth. Better yet, there was an _economy_. Trade, business, markets, all of it. All of it opening. All of it was impossibly dreamlike.

And reality had taken hold.

His company had a good presence worldwide, but cybertronians had no market for top of the line cars. If they wanted to 'scan' one, they could find specs in a magazine. As much fun as a galactic market sounded, he just couldn't make it in. And no humans had really gotten a presence on the other supposed markets out there. From what he gathered, cybertronians weren't actually that popular. Sure, Earth loved them. They were Earth's token aliens, after all. The first extraterrestrial visitors and ones who'd given them an alliance early on? Way to play to their pride. It gave them a sense that they were special. Highly valuable. Worth enough to get rushed at in the hunt for galactic allies. It hadn't really occurred to them that maybe, by accepting the treaties and trade, they'd alienated their own ability to trapeze to open trade worlds and market stations where dozens of species came to do business. 

So here he was.

Five years into a very different world.

Practically obsolete. 

It really did irk him. He should have been more than a hasbeen. He had a well respected investment operation and the best exotic car sales in North America. He had a beautiful office no matter which plant he visited. Every part of his companies- from the wares to the employees- had style. And it didn't matter. Sure, it did here on Earth. Business was hardly suffering. Yet. That was the word he'd come back to. Yet yet yet. Sometime soon, those with actual ties would start bringing over those hybrid wares and offers and company styles and they'd be _better_ , they'd be novelties, they'd be the new and improved future. Unless he got an edge into that field, he and his father's former empire were going to be left in the dust of a new world. 

Five years ago, he'd been pushed off a brink and all he'd done since that date was scrabble at its side to delay his fall.

What absolute shit. 

So yes. It'd been a decent day of work. There'd been the usual. And there'd been the subdued dread that had been there for the last few years because he could sense his own obsolescence. When it came to investments, his prize company and his father's work were not wise options to be betting on. Even he could admit that. 

When it came to investments...

he needed that edge. He needed that in. A passing hobby in ordering technology from those dealers who did have access to the alien markets wasn't going to sustain him. That same hobby's access to human cutting edge technology- of which there were a few valuable, if not at all legal, sources to order from- also couldn't keep him going forever. If he was an inventor, maybe. Maybe he'd string together his toys to make something valuable enough to get his name back in the news. He wasn't an inventor. He was a CEO and an exotic car enthusiast. It wasn't exactly the marking of the world's next celebrity trailblazing businessman.

These were the sorts of dilemmas that bothered him on gloomy days like this. There was just no helping it. The car drive over to his office passed by at least two kids in cardboard robot get up, one streetside salesman trying to sell raffle tickets for a 'visit to Cybertron', and some woman on a cybertronian model motorcycle (he'd only managed to snag six or so alien vehicle models in the last five years and most of them had never entered his personal use collection when buyers overseas had offered so much for them). Reminders of the inevitable were everywhere.

In the office, he had to deal with his ambient noise- a television- distracting him with news stories on the next big official extraplanetary summit and the like. He had a small pile of paperwork unfinished by the time that the place was shutting down and his employees were heading off. It was the price paid for getting a little too invested in analyzing some of the cybertronian leaders/liaisons/diplomats playing on channel 4. 

And at the end of the day, he'd decided to catch up on paperwork in the comfort of his work office after a delightful dinner he'd enjoyed, alone, at a gourmet establishment nearby. The office here had more aesthetics to it than his home did, at times. The fog of rain tonight would be spreading its droplets over tall windows that'd still show the lights of the city beyond through the moisture. The lighting would be bright, to contrast with the gloom of the night outside, his chair would be plush, and his stereo system would distract from any isolated loneliness he may have felt. All in all, more appealing than heading home after his meal would have been. It'd mean only heading home to an empty house and that meant only too much time to think unpleasant reminiscences. Staying late here, at the least, would mean a late night drive through a still-lit city in a high class car passerbys could envy and that sounded all the more enjoyable. 

All of that aside, he _had_ expected to be as _alone_ in his office as he would have been at his apartment. 

The figure standing in front of his windows- unmoving even after he unlocked the door unassumingly and stopped dead at the sight of the intruder- did not seem to care for his expectations.

* * *

His first reaction was that whoever had broken into his office was ill prepared for any sort of attempted stick-up. The guy was practically in a bathrobe. Well. Too long to be a bathrobe, really, but it was all just a bland off-white color and more than strongly resembled one. Getting threatened by someone in spa clothes seemed a little self defeating.

Then the height of the man hit him.

Dylan wasn't short, but from this far away it was still easy to see that the stranger held a few inches on him and undoubtedly more mass. He didn't exactly spend his offtime exercising. 

Even the height was forgotten when his intruder turned his head to the side to look at Dylan.

His throat convulsed shut. His gut clenched and one hand pawed at the doorway he stood in to escape. Fight or flight was a useful instinct and it was blaring red hot right now.

The face began to slack into an expression and the hope that it was merely a mask faded away. Masks couldn't change expressions. No, that visage had to just be his intruder's face.

Now, his picture came together. The off-white not-bathrobe. The dark mane of hair, its cowlicks forcing two lumps of unstyled mass to stick out rather than be brushed down with the rest. The gray skin that was both too smooth and too near the shade of the robe itself to be comfortably stared at. The ruby eyes- or, perhaps, white eyes, as only the iris bore that white amidst the red. An odd smooth surface where a nose ought to be. This was not a human. 

Dylan dropped his styrofoam leftovers box and gaped. 

"Don't run."

The not-human cut over that very plan to flee. At the least, his visitor's voice was hardly monstrous. With a deep breath, the businessman crept nervously into his office and let himself be shut in with whoever this was.

"Apologies for alarming you," the stranger spoke again with a tone meant to put him to faux ease. "I wouldn't normally steal into your workplace this way, but this is the first moment of privacy I've had to speak to you within this day."

Was that supposed to calm him down?

"What are you?" Dylan blurted out.

An alien, probably. He was finally getting his chance for business with one, after five years of lacking a link to Cybertron.

The stranger laughed. 

"I don't suppose you'll go with human as an answer?"

Nope.

Especially not after that comment.

"Normal people aren't gray unless they're dead," he stuttered. "And no one that I know of has been born with eyes like that."

It received a tilt of the head before the man left the window pane to walk.

"I'm sorry for the fright, then," the stranger shifted forward along the wall with odd grace. "I didn't mean for this appearance to be disturbing. It was the closest I could find in your mind to fit my own."

What?

What in the everloving hell did that mean?

Dylan struggled with the situation and, like any self respecting adult, scrabbled for plausible answers. The best he could come up with was, in this day and age: aliens. Five years ago he'd have gone with mental breakdown or makeup artist, but five years ago he hadn't been at all aware of the madness to come.

"Are you one of those aliens?" he asked bluntly.

The man smiled. 

"Do I look like a cybertronian to you?"

From all accounts, cybertronians were typically portrayed as thirty feet tall metal humanoid monsters. So...no. Although some human newsletters posted stories about something called 'holomatter avatars', they seemed to just be invented by those very human authors. The only way this guy could be one of those cybertronians was if they were somehow right after all and- with the credibility or lack thereof of those authors- that was unlikely.

"But I am not the one to ask that of," the stranger spoke up again.

Alright.

What.

That was more cryptically nonsensical than before. 

"I see you are confused," the intruder paused in his walking to smile at him again and the still finally let Dylan acknowledge what about his movement had felt odd. It was not walking. The legs moved too stiffly and short to be making the strides his position in the room put him down with. The illusion of walking was there, but all it was was movement. Gliding, maybe. Teleporting. There was a lack of details to pin down that answer. 

"Why wouldn't I be?" Dylan crossed his arms and tried to look authoritative rather than scared. "You're breaking into my office when I and security are the only ones here. You can't bullshit me by saying you're a human. Sorry buddy, but quite frankly, you've ruined that cover. So yeah. I think I'm allowed to be just a bit confused about this thing that was waiting in my room for me and jumping into cryptic-"

"Are you spiritual, Mr. Gould?" the man interrupted. 

Dylan blinked. 

"Well, I. I'm not particularly religious," he answered stiltedly. The interruption had taken him off guard just as much as the randomness of the question had. He was used to getting more respect than that.

"My apologies if you find me rude," the stranger lifted grayed hands placatingly. "It is not my intention to strike you thusly, but I'm afraid you are correct: I am no human. I am unaware of all your acceptable social graces."

It struck a note he'd rather it hadn't. _It was the closest I could find in your mind to fit my own appearance,_ this thing had said. It implied a rifling through his brain, his mind, something that ought to have been impossible. Even now, he had not said aloud any comment on this man being disrespectful or not. Sure, he'd thought it, but...

What sort of alien could rifle through a mind? Cybertronians couldn't.

This entire venture was veering into dangerously uneasy territory. He hated to insult himself, but Dylan had known for decades that he was a coward. This kind of danger, unprecedented and seemingly supernatural as it was, undoubtedly tripped over the line of acceptable unease to helpless fear.

As though understanding the growing panic, the stranger backed up to his original spot at the windows.

"Forgive me," he gave an apologetic smile. "I'm giving you too much to think of at once and still obscuring those details that matter. I'm not here to confuse you. I merely thought I could offer you information that has long been hidden from humanity."

Information?

He got good payoff investing in information. 

_You'd tell me anyways,_ Dylan mentally sneered. He wasn't a novice at interactions like these. 

"Shoot, then," he gave formal permission.

The silver face went lax. It was still unsettling to behold. At the least- other than appearance and mystery- he hadn't been threatening. It wasn't like Dylan could do much to defend himself if this mystery alien attacked.

"I know your origins," the stranger said bluntly enough. "I know the creator of humanity."

That, at least, brought context to the comment on spirituality asked earlier. Dylan had meant what he said. The idea of a 'creator' hadn't really crossed his mind since he was a teen, perhaps. It never mattered to him, one way or another. 

Now confronted by a claim that such philosophically and scientifically sought after answers actually did exist, he wasn't all that sure he wanted the supposed answers.

...who was he kidding? He was being offered something that humanity had argued over for millennia! He was being offered something that no other human had. His companies may be falling behind in competition, but this was proof that he wasn't personally drifting to obsolescence. 

"You...do?" the human spoke up after a moment of internal debate.

There was a flick of a hand, the wavering of a form- almost mechanical in its glitching from view. How strange. 

The other seemed to catch him staring and gave him another smile. Dylan may have called it sheepish, even as he felt his gut curdling. 

"You are quite the mechanically minded individual," the man laughed. 

Not quite. He was a business minded individual with an affinity for computers and technology on the side. As such, there was a sad handicap in actual mechanics.

"I've been surrounded by technology all my life," Dylan shrugged.

And then the figure was nearer. He hardly had time to register that he had not seen the movement occurring. 

"But...not enough-" gray lips peeled aside to show undetailed teeth again. They may not have been teeth at all. He saw no crease between each one. "You want access to the living technology. The aliens, as you called them. Cybertronians."

Why deny it? Dylan shrugged again.

"You don't even realize how close they are now," the man's demeanor had gone soft in an instant, speaking with mournful melancholy. "Cybertronians are a far broader term than those you see from the planet Cybertron. This is, in fact, what I meant to tell you of your creator."

Consider him engaged. It wasn't like he had anywhere to run from an infeasible visitor. The human gave a nervous _go on_ gesture that earned another smile (however nostalgically distant). 

"Your creator did not even know he was spawning you," the stranger continued. "He was cybertronian as well. He and Primus and the others; each of them created children of their own. Should they not also be called cybertronian? But they are not. Primus took the name for the world he constitutes as the core of and gave it to his spawn only. The ammonites, the humans; they all found names of their own, despite their shared heritage."

Shared heritage?

The core of? 

Vaguely, he remembered some of the strange religion of their alien trade partners. Something about a 'Primus', the very one this man spoke of apparently, who gave life, 'sparks', to all cybertronians. There was the story of how Primus made up the core of the planet they lived on, but Dylan had assumed this was a metaphor of some kind. Not one he, or any human, could relate to enough to distinguish, but that had been his assumption nonetheless. This visitor who'd denied that he himself was a cybertronian seemed to believe otherwise- it was no metaphor; it was a literal core and he was implying Earth's own shared the same living, godly quality as Cybertron's did.

It had to be bullshit.

But the face of the visitor betrayed nothing but honesty.

Five years ago, he wouldn't have even believed a story about metal bugs or transforming cars or aliens. Maybe it was the wild ride 2013 constituted as, but he was far more willing to believe in crazy stories now. 

That aside, the whole 'shared heritage', cybertronian creator for humans, _should they not also be called_ thing? 

"Are you trying to tell me-"

"-that you are cybertronian?" the man interrupted with a smile. "I suppose I am. A different organic structure, but the same in mind. Everything cybertronians have done in this universe, I assume humanity would do as well. If they had the technological capabilities for it."

It was praise. It was a confidence in humanity's ability to reach a position of prowess in the stars, just as cybertronians had. They would not forever be underdogs. With the, as he'd put it, 'technological capabilities', they could be as starfaring and important as their alien allies were. They would not rely on others lifting them to the sky; they themselves could wear those shoes for planet-bound civilizations.

"Would you allow me to tell you the details of that origin? I can clear for you just how you relate to your ‘aliens’," the stranger offered with a wide grin.

The human desire to find all that current research could only guess on, alongside a competitive desire to elevate to the business power he felt so outmatched by now, was too strong to turn that offer down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up, answers.  
> Or will they be? 
> 
> Also a note about the DOTM continuity immigrants here. I've only watched that film once, this spring, solely for the sake of this fic's plot. I don't plan on making myself watch it, or any bayverse film, again, so from this point out Dylan (and Carly) may be molded into ooc territory from their canon portrayal without me having a continual a reference.


	6. Offers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megatronus baits the hook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize for the wait. I can't really multitask with writing different stories and so my time since August was spent focusing solely on writing and completing a tfa fic. Now that it's over, I should be back here!

This was far easier than even he could have hoped. Fear mixed with greedy curiosity compiled together to create eager ears. Megatronus knew well enough that he had the attention of the human completely captured.

"I have found your science, or that knowledge of it in your mind," he began again while his audience waited in uneasy excitement. "You attribute the functions of your Earth sciences to what seems, fairly so, to be the central component of your planet and you take that model to apply to all other worlds; you've explained and predicted stellar systems both local and in the furthest galaxy because of the model you have created for your own planet. It is all based in hypothesis on a core your technology can hardly crawl into. You rightly assume that your Earth's core gives your planet life. But it is not through providing heat and tectonics and magnetic fields alone."

Not that said core had ever planned on offering its spawn such comforts. But that was not for Dylan Gould to know. 

"It _itself_ is life." Megatronus's illusionary avatar smiled widely. "A primordial being gone dormant."

That physical being, at least, had. The energy being had its moments of activity; the alignment had awoken that energy first and, by all accounts, Unicron had planned then on regaining his body no matter what life lay atop it. After the alignment, he had to have known his moment to regain that original body had come and gone by more mystical means. The murderous, deluded plan of the decepticon warlord had given a new offering; that device, that omega lock, that had been aimed twice at Earth and the god that lay in its core. The warlord had bragged on it being his final killing blow to that being. Foolish stupidity. Cyberforming the planet would not be one last way to trap Unicron within; it would have revived what cybernetic body lay dormant after long passed battles between the Thirteen and the creature. Without the dangled hope of the omega lock, Unicron had moved to a final plan. He'd moved to poison the well of his enemy and finalize Primus's death, all the while giving up on believing the physical body he'd once had would ever rise again. 

Primus's body would never be more than the planet Cybertron now.

Unicron's would be no different, no matter what occurred on astral planes. 

"Have those spokespeople on your media ever explained their planet and its connection to religion?" 

The human in front of him twisted his face in absent thought. Such thoughts were brought in front of a hundred others: hunger levels, balanced fear, a few glimpses of aside thoughts on his prized cars and other humans in poses likely sensual that had no bearing on his current situation, a note on the state of this room and the organic fuel that had been spilt on its floor, and more and more. The mind was ever-running, a dozen considerations at once all triaged by importance before reaching frontal consciousness. Megatronus saw those chaotically balanced thoughts even as Dylan seemed to come to a conclusion on the question he'd been asked. 

"I'm not really sure," the human answered, forehead wrinkled as brows furrowed, wrinkling in a way cybertronian plating couldn't, a way far more reminiscent of so many other organic aliens spread across the galaxy (aliens that he had watched begin, evolve, smiled at the successes of, watched helplessly as they were burned and torn apart- naive, non-disruptive peoples that had done nothing to draw cybertronian attention except lay in the way of their cosmic war, and attributing the same similarities to humanity briefly drew his own thoughts short).

"I mean, I don't watch a lot of the news about them recently so I can't say I'm the most informed," Dylan continued. "They're all big on that Primus guy, right? I think I heard something about him being the, erm, planetary core. That's about it."

All the better. If the cybertronian ambassadors had spoken openly, it would make his job here more difficult. It would make their own more difficult as well. How could they present honestly to the oblivious world they had made this alliance with? How could they admit that all their speakers were war criminals? that one had attempted to cyberform their planet twice? that they were _hated_ by the galaxies nearby? It would raise too many concerns for the younger world. They may have reconsidered why it was Cybertron wanted to make a deal with them so publicly. 

And if they had spoken bluntly on the topic of Unicron, then Megatronus would likely find it harder to sway a human to give him all of the devices he needed. People hardly volunteered up the means for their eradication. 

"Then I will give you a short answer," he offered easily. 

Through the cautious interest being offered his way, Megatronus felt amusement grow. It would be a short answer. Highly abridged, for the sake of time. Mostly misleading, for a different sake altogether. 

"At the core of cybertronian life is their planet: Cybertron. Those stories you heard are true. Like your own world, this core is, in actuality, the body of a great being. Primus. The creator of all cybertronians. Humanity was given life by the being at your planet's own core: a being known as Unicron."

Any search over internet or extranets would provide a great amount of negative stories on the despicable creature. Dylan would likely not seek them out. If he did, he likely would not care. The human cared for himself, not about the morals of some dormant god.

"I have already told you of this creator," Megatronus shifted his presented form towards the human, who shifted his head back to look up into its face. 

There was only that same greed for more there. No signs of a person who would quake at hearing the god at the core of their world was one that devoured his way through galaxies before his current dormancy. No, such upsetting news would not even register among that which Dylan Gould found truly important out of this story: that humanity stood on a precipice much like cybertronians; that humanity was, from what he was getting out of this tale, _important_. A creature like this man was rather reliant on feeling important. 

"He was a cybertronian, just as Primus. Moreso than that. They are equal. They are the same."

That, at least, could not be quickly disproven over any web search. So few actually understood any part of the origins of Primus and Unicron's battle. Perhaps the mech who'd carried the matrix of leadership until so recently, but the rest only had diluted stories passed down over so many hundreds of millions of stellar cycles that they had barely anything of the original details. It was a common misconception enough that the two were intertwined in such a way.

"Two halves, one whole. Split long ago and, as you see, different just as they are similar; Primus's planet and spawn resemble himself, Unicron's is one of dirts and organic growth. But the sparks, the minds, the evolution, is, at the core, the very same."

Dylan looked impressed. Evidently, he did not doubt that, despite how he must know he had no spark, despite the hidden information that Unicron himself had no spark. Megatronus almost wanted to laugh, just as much as he wished to grimace- lying was far too easy. It had always been. Was it much wonder, back millennia before, that small but growing group calling themselves after deception had chosen his myth's motif to inspire their own? Even after eons passed and myths faded or evolved, the caricature made after him was one of a smooth deceiver just as much as it was one of brute violence. 

The misleading tale was important. Getting this human to provide him his technological means of entry and spark fusion was important. The means it took to reach the goal could not be. 

"These pieces...they are lost." He schooled the avatar's expression to one of sorrow. "Separated. Even as their children metaphorically unite. If they were to be joined together once more..."

He dropped the sentence off even as Dylan's mind vaguely supplied ideas for what it could have meant. Total destruction, of course, but a more appealing option would have to be offered in this context. Before then, the hook was baited and it was time only to return to stoking pride.

"All of those who share the heritage of Primus's children are equally so. As I said- Ammonites. Humanity. You. You and your species are direct descendants of the being Unicron. And that gives you a heritage," Megatronus lifted his voice. "You _will_ be the next great species to take this galactic cluster by the storm that cybertronians have." 

Oh, it was not a compliment. It was no praise. 

But the human did not see that fact.

The fallen Prime smiled.

"Ok. Yeah. I mean, cybertronians- or, um, Primus's version of cybertronians-" 

The blundering at least showed the human was listening. Trying to understand. That, at least, was respectable. 

"-they got a big presence in space, don't they? They've been pretty big in the galaxy, haven't they?" Dylan asked. 

When the other seemed to stall in his answer, the human shrugged. "It's just- that's what impression they give on TV in those interviews and what you just said. I haven't actually seen any other aliens, so I don't know how often cybertronians get talked about specifically."

Often enough.

Enough that, in time, those other voices ceased talking altogether.

The graves of forty-four species said as much.

"Yes."

The answer carried a slight hiss that he wished it had not. Such a thing could put the human at ill ease. 

"They are," Megatronus added with an enforced neutrality bordering closer to affection than his earlier slip. "I'm sure that the civilizations of the closest intergalactic communities will say the same when your planet has reached in offer to them as well."

There was a point, however. A purpose to all this story weaving. He would rather like to return to it. The human spoke again instead. 

"Hey, do you think that more are going to sign deals with us?" Dylan perked up. "Will we get to go to their markets and set up there?"

Greedy, ambitious mortal. Fear over approaching obsolescence went forgotten under the momentary thrilling hope that his form of businesses would work in alien marketplaces. It was a reassuring emotional spinning to witness. It was the neuroticism, the imbalance, the so-quick-to-rise-or-dive, of emotion that played out almost identically in familiarity as he felt the mind currently overjoyed at the hope dangling in front of his imagination (a hope even now already dulling without more prompting to fuel its sustainability, ever more an example of how this processor- organic or not- functioned out of instability and constant movement equating to shifts in mood and changes in thoughts because Primus help a mind that sat stagnant for more than a nano) compared almost identically to what a cybertronian's would have. 

Megatronus could have smiled. They were truly more alike than he could have hoped. His conscience was more than prepared to kill the children of Primus, to let his own mess of a mind erase. This mind he witnessed now was almost indistinguishable from those spawn of his creator that he was so ready to remove from this scarred universe. 

"I imagine so," he answered through his amusement and relief. 

The avatar figure shifted a short distance on the floor again. The discomforted terror from earlier was no longer surfacing. This- striking deals, navigating angles- was Dylan's territory of familiarity. Comfort, even, perhaps. The stoked pride in a sense of importance based on earlier philosophizing helped as well. Even as Megatronus's presented form stood so close, the human looked almost happy at the proximity rather than cringing back. It almost seemed as though Dylan was ready to throw a hand out and shake already. 

But his offer had not even been explained. 

"It is a rather natural part of any civilization to enact trades based in deals, is it not? And this is where I would step in with a deal of my own," he grinned haplessly. "Everyone has an angle, I'm afraid. I need something from you."

Seemingly encouraged by the promise of working over a deal, Dylan distractedly moved towards his own desk and gestured at the seat across from it. The avatar based solely in the humans own mind took the seat offered in that mind's perception. There was no feel to it. There was no avatar to start with. 

"I am here, in this dimension, for the purpose of these two beings," Megatronus started, resting silver hands on the desk's surface in the illusion. It was a motion of ease. The human that actually was present in that room looked eager when sitting like this in comparison to the earlier unease of being locked in a room with a stranger. It was, he assumed, the familiarity of it that did the easing. 

"Unfortunately, I cannot enter this universe completely. My state is limited. This is where I ask for your help. I have a list of supplies that I need; with these supplies, I can provide the instructions for constructing the gateway I will need to enter. I am rather reliant on your good graces," he admitted affably. "Rest assured, it will not be completely one sided. I can offer help in return. My purpose is to allow these two portions of a greater being to unite again, but I can offer help to you personally. As it is, this unification will only be partially noted on this physical realm of the world and your fellow mortals shall merely see you as the spokesperson responsible for bridging the chaos that has inflicted the world from this lack of unification to order; they will see you as the spokesperson for two gods who will not speak and for their herald in me, who also will not speak to them. But this status will not be all I can offer you..."

The hesitation warred with anticipation, excitement, hope. Dylan would say yes. No matter when that answer was vocalized, it had already been determined in the human’s mind. 

"The technology that I need will no longer be needed after I have used it. You may have it all. Duplicate it, patent it, reach out to the stars for distant markets and sell it. You will have a hold on something that will present an edge for your business for generations to come."

Fear of obsolescence pressed and pressed and demanded quick answer. Dylan Gould's own fear of losing a status in the one battlefield he understood had already accepted Megatronus's deal before it had even been spoken. 

* * *

"You will, of course, need to give me time to find resources after you provide those details."

Dylan shuffled the files sitting in front of him, seemingly caught up in dotting down info on small, colorful notes. 

"That aside, we'll just have to keep in contact to make sure that both our lists are aligning. I'd hate to order the wrong parts for your, er, 'gateway'."

Of course. 

Megatronus inclined his head, smile present still. 

"Pleasure to start doing business with you," the human himself smiled, looking up from his notes to his alien visitor. "Oh..."

Yes?

"And, sorry-" Dylan made a faux cringe, as if embarrassed to have to bring it up. "-but I don't think I caught your name."

Ah. 

That was not something he had been asked in eons. The creatures in his current prison did not need to ask it and they did not care. He did not care either. His name was one of pain and mistakes and bitter anger. 

"I...do not have a name," he said regretfully. His former name was far too recognizable; a quick search across this planet's internet would offer up something, no matter how small, and that would dissipate his claim that he was not in fact a cybertronian. Calling himself The Fallen would incur the same fate. Any cybertronian would be able to recognize those names and spout that knowledge attached to the title's owner for this ignorant ally. 

Dylan seemed to pout. Or that was the closest descriptive, at any rate.

"Makes it a little hard for me to keep track of all this," he complained. "Is there something-"

And was there? Options flashed before him, but Megatronus did not care for using them. To use a familiar name such as Solus was not acceptable. To be creative enough to think one up was taking too long already. A title ran into the same error. He could not infer to being a Prime. It would be too easy to break the lie that he was not cybertronian if he did. Still, he had last functioned among Primes and his only time with companions that would need a name basis had been the Thirteen. 

They would do.

Megatronus knew the order in which all of them had sparked. It would do.

"Twelve."

The blather of the human cut off. Dylan tilted his head at the other.

"What?" he asked. 

"You needed a name to call me," Megatronus said simply. 

"That's a number."

How very observant. 

Evidently, his own expression did not look impressed. The mind of the businessman flashed through thoughts, reminders, that this was an alien, and not one of the aliens that Earth knew. Why assume an alien would use names like humans would?

"Erm. I mean, of course. Thanks for giving me something to go by," Dylan corrected himself. "I appreciate it. It's hard to do business with a complete unknown, after all."

There was an edge glinting in those gray organic eyes when the ensuing laugh finished.

"Speaking of that, I'm still a little lost on what you are besides _not human._ You said you're from a different dimension? Are you a ghost?"

No. He was not dead yet. With any good fortune, he and the rest of these two people would be soon.

"So, what is it?" Dylan continued. "Are you an angel or something?"

How pressing he seemed to find this. It was not unexpected. Megatronus had been well aware that he could not just arrive and leave without whichever human aide he'd chosen finding him strange and wishing answers. 

"I suppose I was created to be a herald for my creator," he granted.

Let that mean whatever the human wanted it to.

Let their deal's offering in Dylan's favor mean such too. The human could fill in however many blanks he wished to with whatever ideas were most desirable. 

It would only make this operation smoother. 

This time, the human did reach out over the desk. They shook, both smiling, neither feeling the sensation of touch from the illusion of gripping hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orion starts his search on Earth, but strange familiarities may be interrupting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH, and by the way, I want to give a big thank you to whoever put the original story in this series on TV Tropes! That's the highest praise that can be offered a long-time troper like myself and I really appreciate it.

No matter how much of an emergency he felt this was, the actual process of getting to Earth was not nearly expedited enough. To call his purpose there anything but personal, he had to supply reasons, the date of entry, which human liaisons he would need to work alongside, and more. As he himself did not know that purpose other than investigating a highly worrying vision of danger and had discovered before that humans got either very picky or very panicky at the mystical, Orion ended up coming to an unwanted conclusion about how he would go about this. As much as professionalism desired he go through proper channels, he'd ended up requesting a spacebridge from Ratchet that would bypass all those normal jurisdictional barriers. 

A few jours after his conversation with Megatron and his farewell to Jazz (who'd given him the usual grin that said wordlessly that he'd be spending Orion's entire absence spying on Soundwave's current pet project and all the other suspicious figureheads in the capital; and who, despite his own glee at the chance to retreat into surveillance, dropped the mask to ask him once if he felt like he'd need backup on Earth), Orion finally stepped pede on Earth. The vision from the star saber hadn't told him when the threat he'd felt rising would strike. It was the one comfort for just how lost he was in approaching this. How exactly could find answers faster than the threat could strike when he didn't know the first detail on that danger? 

The autobot base on Earth was instantly warmer than the cybertronian room he'd bridged from. Part of that was literal; Nevada was a rather hot place this late in the summer season. Another was a sense of familiarity that always seemed to strike whenever he came here. Cybertron was full of life and for that Orion was glad. But Optimus had found such a contentment here, on Earth, in this very base. That human concept, that family- a warming spot amidst the tail end of a war that had seemingly already been long ago lost to the decepticons. Those had been the last years of the Prime's existence. They influenced the latest memories. Memories influenced comfort. And so it was that stepping into this sandy repurposed silo brought an initial wash of warmth. 

Ratchet was waiting for him at the spacebridge. He was clearly waiting to hear Orion's more thorough explanation for the rush to get away from Cybertron. Or so the medic implicated. Orion himself tried to explain that this had nothing to do with needing a break from his homeworld and its government. This was a matter of mystical importance. Ratchet, of course, believed it; he'd held stake in the prophecy of the alignment and in Optimus's former status as a Prime before the matrix had been rendered obsolete. Even if he'd roll his optics skyward and make remarks that went right on the edge of sarcastic sacrilege, he still recognized the existence of what mystical functions existed in their reality. 

So, no. No, it was not a rushed vacation pressured on by the violent words of the carcerian diplomat or the frustration of Vos's leader or the dozens of visitors that wished to meet him each day to shake the servo that had once belonged to their hero or- as Ratchet likely suspected the most strongly- the constant proximity of a mech whose current misery did little to appease the millennia of warmongering left behind. Ratchet always held to those being the strongest discomforts that could lead to Orion asking for a 'break'. It was inaccurate. Or mostly so. Or, perhaps, he wished it was so. Orion did feel that there was a constant helmache involved in the last five stellar cycles of leadership. Too many crowds, too much adoration. And the capital center where he worked _was_ shared with unforgivable war criminals, of that Ratchet was correct. Sometimes the constant proximity to those involved in the war did crescendo until he knew he had to step away. 

But his old friend didn't understand the entire story there. Ratchet assumed it was the constant proximity of decepticons or former decepticons. He assumed it was the proximity of the specific high ranking decepticons responsible for the long war. That had been the reason that Ratchet himself lived here, rather than on the homeworld he'd fought so hard to restore. A million wounds could not go forgotten when the guilty party strolled about. But Orion was exposed to the matter differently than the medic. 

It was not just decepticons. 

It was _everyone_. 

Unfortunate as it was, Jazz was a good example in this regard. The mech had been a good friend of Orion's before the Primehood had transformed everything. Ratchet had as well. Most of the others he'd considered close friends as a lowly archivist or militia member were dead now. All of them were _gone._ That was the part that tore at Orion most. 

Because he retained all of Optimus's memories, there was no shock to the changes between people then and now. Those memories supplied all the many vorns that had caused such gradual evolution. At times, Optimus had grieved those evolutions. But the veil that numbed so much, that kept a Prime focused on the greater whole of a species and not the personal connections to individuals, was not the same discomfort that Orion felt now when he regarded old friends. They had all changed in war. Some, like Ratchet, had remained at his side all along and that proximity left both stabilized. Others worked separately. Others disappeared for a time before reappearing. Some never reappeared and were written off as MIA, as dead. All never reappeared in the sense that they remained who they'd been before. Who they'd been as Orion's friends in a world before the war. 

Jazz still was as friendly as ever. And Orion truly was happy that he was at his side at the capital. Over the years since Cybertron's restoration, Jazz had become a fixture, a defacto 2IC. Trusted. That was never questioned. Jazz would always watch his back. 

The Jazz that Orion had worked with long before the war had always hid much. He'd been a spy even as he seemed like such a prestigious archivist, a cheerful mech who lived in enough comfort that he never seemed to have reason to complain, a loyal cybertronian that was hardly suspected to be working against the caste system and council in the dark. He was cheerful now. Loyal to Orion as a friend, even if it was impossible to say with absolute certainty that he was loyal to the government or faction. If Optimus's memories were to be counted for anything, then Jazz had a few incidents even before going MIA that suggested he did as he planned to and act on his own. Or hopefully his own. It was harder still to imagine some other unknown behind some of those actions. Still, he was trustworthy. As a person, he was. As a friend. The same old Jazz. 

And that was what drove in the dissonance and forced Orion to step back for space sometimes. This Jazz, this identical one in ease and humor sense and mannerisms around him, had a track list of decisions made during the war- some by high command, by Magnus, by Optimus- that sometimes disturbed Orion as much as any of the decepticons in the capital did. 

Therein lay the problem with proximity. It was not related to a faction of warmongering. It was related to every face he knew, he recognized, he'd once known when he was himself and not the Prime. To all who he passed with a nod and a word in the halls while his mind supplied one war crime or other to them. 

It did ache. But if he was to be truthful? It didn't bury him too much. He was strangely accustomed to the world he'd been reborn into five stellar cycles before. The ledgers worn by every familiar or friendly or bitter face around him hadn't slowed him down to a stop yet. Ratchet was wrong, then. 

He was not here to take a break. 

He was not here to recuperate from the reality wherein the Megatron he'd known was an undead warmonger who'd delighted in pain for millennia and Jazz and Magnus and Arcee and even Ratchet himself had engaged in horrors of their own that kept their smiles now from ever truly matching those of the people he'd known in the time before factions had been created and chosen. 

He was here for a mission and it was time he stopped reminiscing and started searching.

* * *

"You don't think you can be a little more helpful than 'a seeker and a big mech'?" Ratchet asked sardonically from where he stood at the main console. The medic had been trying to search through Unit:E data and Earth news as well as search onlined cybertronian signals for any sign of...well, anything. 

Judging by the commentary, such a broad search wasn't offering much distinct for him. 

"It's all I have, I'm afraid," Orion tried to shrug. As subdued as he once was, even in the days before landing in this new, chaotic world, he'd always been more outgoing around Ratchet. Around any of those he was close with, for the most part. The quiet, content shyness he'd once had with an idol, role model, companion, was unique mostly to that dynamic itself. Back in his old clinic, Ratchet had always liked to prod Orion until they could both laugh despite all that was wrong in the world. 

If only now there wasn't always the present grief surrounding them one on one, built from Ratchet's desire to see the mech who shrugged and tried to laugh with him go back to being the stoic shrugless laughless Prime he'd stood alongside for nine million stellar cycles. 

There was more frustrated pressing of controls and shifting images on the screen as Ratchet's muttered curses were audibly growled. 

"Ah. Finally." 

The words shook Orion from yet another reverie. One of these cycles, he'd learn to visit this place without spending so much time floating in his own head. 

"There's no unaccounted signals out there," Ratchet said as he turned. The screen became more visible behind him in this new position. "Probably means your mystery mechs are dampening themselves. But I have picked up a trail of human attention being drawn to a cybertronian apparently flying and walking around in Texas."

The medic pointed over to one of the little square windows on the screen. The flyer in the sky was shaded, as was their blurry pics mid-transformation. That kept them unrecognizable for now, no matter how the shape of one of the root-wings seemed to be shouting at Orion's recognition. 

"Do you know where this mech is now?" he asked.

Ratchet moved to face his console once more. 

"I might. There's a live-stream right now outside some amtrak station. Our unknown here is apparently causing a bit of a ruckus out there. This one human is saying, eh-" his face drew closer and optics whirred to magnify. "-'now I know what infernal screeching means'. A couple of the others are just worried about damage to property. This one is complaining about getting ‘cussed out’ by someone accusing them all of ‘having no idea how stupid it is to have sided with...oh, I’m betting the human doesn’t even know what some of those words mean.”

Ratchet’s mouth quirked up in an amused smirk before he shook it away. 

“Sounds like a pain to me."

Sounded like a pain to Orion too, but he wasn't going to mention it. 

"Thanks, Ratchet; I'll need a bridge there right away."

And, because he was struck by the inspiration to do so, because of how very Optimus it seemed, he set a servo on the medic's shoulder to say "Good work, old friend."

The voice was the same, the compliment was as simplified, the gesture was seen over and over in those memories- And the way his friend's head shot up from the groundbridge controls to stare optics wide and mouth parted slightly out at nothing suggested that Ratchet had heard nothing but Optimus in such an exchange.

The expression went guarded after and the medic didn't turn back to him after opening the bridge and waving him on. Orion could only hope he'd helped his distant friend rather than dug up more pain.

* * *

The scuffle was audible when he stepped out from the vortex. A group of humans were twisted to gape up at the green light and back stepped away from him after he'd exited. The flashes of pictures embarrassed him. It seemed that the _proper channels_ were going to be finding out he was on Earth to deal with this seeker and their dangerous companion after all. Maybe Magnus would take care of navigating that for him later. 

In the meantime, there was the sound of metal thudding against metal to worry about. Orion gingerly made his way over dry gray grass towards the human station. The long vehicle there was safe. Intact. Not currently be pounded into scrap. So something _else_ was and the relief that it wasn't the human's train wasn't enough to reassure him about those pounding thuds.

He was starting to regret leaving Jazz behind. The blade on his back was reduced to just a blade and, as evident by his short lived stay on the _Nemesis_ during his amnesia, he was just a little uncomfortable using the weapons he was equipped with.

In short, he was relying a bit on the hope that Optimus's long developed combat skills would step in to help him if it came down to it.

What sort of a threat would this new cybertronian be? Just how outmatched would he be?

That wasn't very confident of him. Sometimes he let himself forget that confidence was supposed to be his quality now.

Besides, Jazz wouldn't have wanted to leave. Not when he was monitoring the activity surrounding the _Nemesis_ , where Soundwave had been spending a whole lot of time for the last few stellar cycles. Orion knew the reason -of course he did, clarity and transparency were absolutely required to make their odd system function on- but it didn't alleviate his former spy's concerns. 

Still, if the problem was big enough, even Jazz would leave behind the titan pet project and join his side here.

He could only hope...

Ah. There they were. Orion had reached the train itself and saw the other cybertronian where they were crouched on the ground. The seeker was probably supposed to be sleek black and red, but there was a thick layer of dust and dirt all over that once-nice plating. The frame itself was quite small compared to his body inherited from the matrix's upgrades. Considering Arcee and, though they were both larger than the two-wheeler, Bumblebee and Jazz, he knew that a tiny frame didn't equate to inability. If anything, Arcee especially had more than enough fury pent up in her to make herself a whirlwind of raging violence on any battlefield. This stranger instantly reminded him of those three. Pounding away, occasionally spitting out some mostly indistinguishable snarl, holding a sharp circular device in tiny servos that were hacking away at the...billboard? A billboard. 

Orion felt a bit of his apprehension fade. This was not the sight of two cybertronians fighting and it wasn't a seeker cutting down humans. 

Still, this was the figure from his vision and that meant they had to be apprehended for answers. Orion made his way around the train and started for the scene of property destruction. The figure tensed, evidently noticing someone much closer to their size than humans were was now nearby; dusted knees shuffled back and that round (familiar, familiar, he'd seen that weapon before) turbine blade went lifted up from the metal shreds of poster below to point at his approach. It let him see the vague signs of one of those posters showing off Earth's exciting alien allies somewhat evident through the damage. The blue hulking shoulder of Dreadwing, the silver of Megatron's plating, the vague yellow stripe that he knew belonged to Bumblebee...Orion's memory supplied him with the image of that version of the posters that he remembered being a part of having taken uncomfortably (no one except perhaps Bumblebee and his predacon friend had enjoyed having the humans and the Reflector unit posing them for jours on end to get as many variations of different sets of important diplomats as they could; this one would have shown Megatron with Bumblebee, Dreadwing and Predaking and a couple of vehicons, who'd also been thrilled to get on such an important advertisement, below- at the least, it wasn't one of the many ones he'd uncomfortably been dragged into posing on getting shredded right now). There was undoubtedly a reason that such a picture would offend this cybertronian enough that they'd try to mush it into an indistinguishable heap, but his own attempts to think of what reasons those may be had faded in an instant. 

The stranger had finished turning their face upwards at his approach and suddenly they weren't a stranger anymore.

Meters away, an MIA autobot gaped at him.

"Optimus?" she started. 

Despite the mistaken identity on her part towards him, there was no mistaking his long-thought-dead friend Windblade for another. _Especially_ not for a threat.


	8. Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Orion tries to direct Windblade away from their human audience while wondering what to make of her state amongst the living.  
> Dylan's secretary takes note of a change in behavior from her employer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is being posted at night, so apologies for the English errors that will inevitably slip past my sleepy brain.

The turbine wasn't put away. It went forgotten in Windblade's servo as she sprung upright. The weapon was hardly something he wanted to feel accidently carve into him, but- forgotten or not- she didn't let it touch blade-side-down even after her arms had rushed to grab around him. 

It was surprising in more ways than one; _not_ that she was mindful enough to keep her bared weapon from cutting him, but that she'd moved for an embrace first to _start_ _with_. Windblade had lost so much of her eager, friendly excitement during the war. She'd become a model soldier, really. Respectful salutes, dangerous battle prowess, and skilled enough to make up for being hot-headed. This felt more like the reaction of that camien recruit who'd stuck at the side of her amica and tried to make peace among many of the militia members (members that would, in time, chose seperate sides in a war; perhaps seeing her peacemaking/friendmaking attempts end in such a way had been a piece of what left her so jaded later); it felt like the reaction of Orion's colonist friend he'd met when both worked for Alpha Trion. 

Moreso, in contrast, than it felt like the ever-loyal Windblade that watched Optimus's back for vorns (even after Springer and Chromia and so many others from the early days that had convinced her to join in the first place had died and she'd lost so much of herself in the deaths of those she cared about; it would not have surprised Optimus if her loyalty had dimmed from the grief as well, but it had not). 

It was the shock of running into him, he had to assume. Wherever Windblade had been (and oh were those answers he would need soon), it was somewhere where she'd been unable to contact the autobots and unable to discover the current state of affairs in the world. 

Optimus would have-...But he wasn't Optimus. Not entirely. And Orion had always been one for embraces. 

Even if it ended very quickly. He had a second to bring his own servos around perked wings before she'd already peeled away. The seeker was smiling up at him even if her optics were noticeably darting about. 

"Optimus Prime, sir. Sorry for springing on you without warning-" the tip of her mouth moved upwards, betraying rather thoroughly that she wasn't all that sorry "-but I can't say I was expecting to see you."

And wasn't that a feeling that went likewise? But the surprise of it was hardly negative.

No matter how hard it was to believe his own sight. 

Because Windblade had been _dead_. They had all assumed it. She'd vanished in a battle and, when the customary amount of vorns had passed, she had been written off as deceased no matter if her official status was MIA. Some others had found the remains of the memorial site where Chromia was honored and built a small mound for Windblade there as well. Optimus had heard of it and mourned, but it was the mourning he offered for all the fallen; dampened, muted, so as to continue on in protecting the rest of the living cybertronians as the matrix called to do. The last time Optimus had needed to do so was for a comrade whose memorial mound lay atop the base in Jasper.

"Windblade..." Orion's optics strained widely. It was too shocking to see her. Shocking considering how certain everyone, Optimus included, had felt that she'd died vorns before; shocking considering that it was her vague silhouette he'd seen in a vision that was meant to warn of danger. "You are looking..."

"Filthy?" the camien grinned. And, well yes, there was that, but he was aiming more for-

"Alive."

The grin grew, briefly, before Windblade's face fell down towards the _destruction of property_ on the ground close by.

"Yeah, well, I guess I am alive and I'm most definitely filthy, but I can't say I'm in the best state of readiness for either." The camien glanced back up at him. There was still the happiness at seeing him, but the expression was covering something else. Not quite the rage he'd witnessed from the cussing, turbine slicing bot from a moment before, but a...confusion? "Optimus, I just came out of stasis."

Ah. 

Awakening from stasis, even a short span of stasis, was always disconcerting enough to deserve that look of confusion. 

"And it's to this-?" Windblade tried to laugh. The twitch of the still-bared turbine put it as dissonance. "It's bad enough there's so much dirt around, but these humans have allied- I mean, I thought that maybe you and the others were dead- that'd the war had ended while I was gone and we'd lost- all while Primus had me in stasis and I don't- I don't-..."

While _Primus_ had her in stasis? 

The questions over her spot in his vision and on Earth alive only grew at that remark. 

"Slow down, Windblade. I'll try to catch you up to speed," he tried. It was not quite the sophisticated sort of strength that his predecessor would have, but his own current confusion kept him from much eloquence.

There was a twitch, the seeker's optical brows narrowing together momentarily. 

"I'm pleased to see you are alive," Orion added, even as he commed Ratchet to tell the medic that he would soon be requesting a bridge. "We had thought that we had lost you."

The earlier easy glee still hadn't returned from the defenses Windblade had returned. 

"Well, I'm glad to be alive too. The last I remember, I was in the sort of trance that a former cityspeaker can't easily shake off and I, well. It felt like I wouldn't be coming back either. I feel as offbalance over being alive as you do, maybe," she shrugged. 

A trance, one referred to with the context of cityspeaking (which Windblade had ceased mentioning as an aspect of herself long ago, so the mention now brought his mind to a halt), a stasis put on by Primus, what else?

"We should take our leave," he spoke over his own thoughts. "Ratchet will take us back to the base. The, well, the humans are staring."

And, though he wouldn't say it aloud just now, she was a volatile presence at current. Her recent stasis left her without knowledge of this planet (even if she did know its inhabitants were called humans) and without knowledge of the war. Trying to explain that he was no longer a Prime and that the war had not ended in unilateral victory but in truce seemed a mistake out here in the open. He found that he'd rather have Ratchet there to back his explanations up. And for there to be no humans nor human advertisement billboards around for her to express confused displeasure on.

"Base?" Windblade mulled over the word. Her frame was strung tense. "An autobot base? Is there a resistance on this planet to whatever- whatever- _this-_ is?" She jabbed her turbine down towards the shredded advertisement. 

If not for all the cameras and dozens of voices squabbling together from the humans peering beyond the amtrak vehicle he'd walked around earlier, Orion would have tried to explain everything right there. 

Instead, he stepped forward to take her arm in a servo and draw her attention away from her destructive handiwork. 

"Perhaps you should put your weapons away," he muttered. The almost imperceptible clicking of cameras was at his foremost attention, unfortunately. 

Hearing Magnus talk him down for causing such a scene was going to be uncomfortable later.

* * *

Watching the humans chatter about what the unknown cybertronian was saying had been slightly amusing for a while, but even their ignorance on some of the finer cursing that cybertronian dialect had to offer grew flat shortly. It was far more pressing to wonder what Orion was facing now. He would be able to handle any threat, of course. He had battle experience, a frame that defeated the likes of insecticons, Megatron, and Predaking, and at least four different weapons accessible. 

Ratchet didn't know that he trusted Orion to use that all to his advantage. He'd not seen the mech fight in the last five stellar cycles, after all. There'd not been an incident that forced Orion into combat in all that time. 

Stressing over that (pah- he wasn't stressing) got nowhere. Ratchet returned to the human chatter and watched them blabbing on about 'hugs' and 'anyone make out what they're saying?' and 'shit, that's Orion Pax, isn't it?!'. The like. It didn't seem to be describing a horrific battle that would require his expertise to patch up. Some comforts remained, it seemed.

Finally, he'd been given the call to send a groundbridge for...well, considering Orion's use of "us", both him and the unknown. Ratchet kept a close look at the green vortex as the tall form of a Prime flashed into being next to a smaller bot about the height of Bumblebee. The wings were a giveaway to their seeker frame and, considering the fuzzy pictures that had led Orion to that spot in the middle of Nowhere, Earth, Ratchet could only assume that was the figure that the former archivist had come here to find. And here he'd expected Orion's two shadowed vision mechs to be the comba...ti...

It couldn't be. 

"By the allspark..." Ratchet's optics widened. 

Orion offered a helpless (amused) expression, as though he couldn't have offered the slightest of warning over their comm before stepping in here with a dead soldier. 

* * *

Carly had arrived half an hour before her boss did. Both of them were meant to come in rather early, but the secretary preferred to get here before he did. It helped her take stock of the place. It helped her find a center and her work smile and plaster it on in the peaceful silence that having few employees present gave her. 

That morning had been no exception to the routine. She'd arrived in a crisply pressed suit with a shirt that wouldn't have been her first choice to an interview or any other job she'd had before, but that worked wonders at this company, and brought her coffee back to the VIP door from the parking lot when the time came to greet Dylan with his agenda for the day. 

It was only when he'd stepped in (ten minutes late, she noted) that the routine shook off. He hadn't paused to take a look over the tablet she had ready to read to him from. He hadn't paused to do anything, really. There wasn't the normal state of grooming about him; his clothes looked as though they'd come from a hamper rather than hanging protectively in a closet. For someone who seemed to have dressed in such a rush, he was later than usual. And there was a new air about him. A nervous one, visible in how tense his neck was and how wooden he sped-walked, and yet one more excited than she'd noticed in years. Not since he'd grown so assured of his own incoming financial ruin (as if, Carly herself had to laugh; he had three companies and would retain a financial state far beyond that of a destitute wreck even if he did have to sell out. She did, of course, never laugh that way outloud; it paid to keep Dylan Gould pacified, no matter what internal commentary she was helpless to come up with over his moping at times), yet here it was now. 

He gave her a rushed "good morning" and went right on towards the main elevator.

That was odd. Normally, Dylan took every opportunity to pass on a smile and a touch and some remark in that general tone. It was sometimes welcome, sometimes not, and overall always a constant no matter if she was allowing a friendly hike or trying to keep the company running professionally. 

Carly's expression furrowed as she looked out over the path her boss had taken so briskly. She was not much of a fan of the unusual without warning. It disturbed the status quo and her own (much less assured, she added, though this time it was with no hint of a laugh) financial state rather depended on stability from the status quo. 

There was no good way to just ask him bluntly over what it was that had shaken the norm. Carly would have to just continue on with her work and try her best to ignore the unease of the unusual. 


	9. Enduring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the capital, Soundwave is frustrated and Megatron is mulling over an unpleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of callouts to Damned If I Do here. The second scene of this chapter occurs right after the end of that oneshot, which means it's occurring about two/three days after the last chapter with Orion ended. We'll be back to Orion's timeframe next chapter (probably, I can promise nothing with my writing)

The project was currently quiet. There was the hum of processors running, but a lack of others present kept this place from being loud and the processors themselves were hardly overworked enough to be noticeable. They could not process complex thought enough yet to require fans or coolant. 

Others would consider the room wherein he worked at this project quiet, then. Soundwave did not. Few places were given that label. Not when surveillance ran on for numerous locations and filled his own processor's with multiple conversations at once. 

He was used to the many noisy feeds by now. They each were filtered for relative information even as he worked on the processors in front of him. Moving them here had been preferable. Here, he was able to remain in the capital centers alongside Megatron. For most of the task, he'd been inside the _Nemesis_ daily and had not been able to watch his leader's safety.

It was, supposedly, not his job anymore to watch over his leader's safety. When peace had first begun, Megatron had told him as much.

Soundwave had not bought that. While he (not _grudgingly_ , he wouldn't apply such a word to himself, even if Laserbeak once had in amusement; he was far too pleased to see her capable of amusement to be insulted by her laughter) still obeyed the command to 'see' others, there was nothing in such an order that denied that he could work in the same premise as Megatron for all the time he was _not_ spending _socializing_. If the amount of time spent working compared to free time had grown over the orns, well...There was just no helping it. This project was one of importance. For one, its recovery would present some of Cybertron's most strong war machines to all those who'd made but subtle secret in negotiations that they found Cybertron weak from war now. And they were. They would win if attacked, most likely, but it would come at great cost to a world only recently brought back from death. Yes, Soundwave was aware of the omega lock. He was aware that it was kept, hidden, from public optics but ready to use in an emergency. The planet could die again and be revived again and that was nothing but waste, nothing but making the original revival pointless, nothing, nothing-- Soundwave was not one for waste. Nor did he enjoy seeing the effort spent in making a place lively and efficient be made pointless by destruction and then cheerfully told to try again. So the carcerians could look at their planet in hunger for a swift, brutal takeover and the alien federations could see them seemingly so weak and decide to remove their scourge while Cybertron was still recovering, but Soundwave had no plans to allow such things to actually occur. They could be thought all they wanted, but no action would present. Especially not if Cybertron had unignorable defenses. 

Truly, Lo-...truly, Megatron was enough. He should have been enough. But others saw him as one mech. One dangerous, vile mech, but one alone. They would not recognize that he alone was as powerful as a small army. If they saw a cityformer, a titan, a warship made giant...It was rhetorical, of course. They would cower. 

Orion Pax had allowed this task because he stated that everyone deserved a chance to live on this new world; the war machine of the decepticons, left brain dead and trapped in alt, went included in such an idealistic conviction. Megatron allowed it vocally for the same reasons. He often vocally repeated an agreeance to whatever his co-leader had said. Soundwave did not always believe him.

The spark of this titan was revived (somehow) (Soundwave did not care enough for details, scientific or mystic, to ponder indefinitely on the _how_ ) when the omega lock was fired on the _Nemesis_. The processor's of the being were hardly revived. It had taken nearly three stellar cycles since taking the head role of this project just to repair them to this state:

This almost functional state. The processors would have to be moved back to the _Nemesis_ when they were finished, but the truly puzzling to address jobs had been the stellar cycles working on the processors themselves. Trypticon had been effectively brain dead. The dark energon mistake aside, the cortical damage had wiped the titan's personality cores and cognitive processes away. The omega lock could, somehow, revive a spark chamber and repair all damage to the exterior processors, but the intricate parts of mental damage went untouched because they had not registered as damages at all. Every part of the anatomy was perfectly fixed, after all. It hadn't mattered to the cybermatter whether or not the personality components were dug up or replaced. Still, in comparison to orns ago, these processors resembled a mech's brain now. 

Soundwave could have felt proud over his work. Perhaps he did, a little. But five stellar cycles were but a blip to cybertronian lifetimes: it would take longer than this to feel much of anything when he had spent vorns without bothering. Pride was an easy start, though. It seemed a base enough emotion for the emotionally immature and he deserved it far more than the likes of drones or braggarts like Starscream and the late Airachnid. 

That was hardly the most important matter at current. Soundwave would not bother praising himself until he was alone. And he did not trust that he was. It was the one unfortunate side effect of working from the capital. Pro: Megatron. Con: the pest. 

Leaving behind the processors for now, the former communications officer scoured the room. The single vent in the ceiling had likely been used to drop the bug from. It wasn't the best way to hide a device, but it was the only option left after Soundwave sealed the doorway from trespassers as well as he had.

Ah. And there it was. 

Soundwave's slim claws pulled the bug up from where it had been sitting unassumingly where it rolled on the floor from the vent, lifting it until it stared at his visor. No doubt the visual functions on it could see that: it had been caught, he'd given it a customary close look, and now it was crushed. A taunt; or a statement, at any rate. It would have been more logical to crush the thing immediately rather than bother with dramatic presentation. The very presence of the bug was a taunt of its own, however. An infuriating taunt. It deserved the presentation so long as its maker felt frustration over seeing Soundwave's flat visor mercilessly defeating his toys once again.

The broken pieces fell around his digits to the floor below. Soundwave ignored the mess as he moved for the door. A vehicon could sweep it up later. So long as that vehicon's entrance did not also allow one autobot Jazz into the room to hide his bugs more successfully than the middle of the floor. 

This passive thought went dead the moment he keyed through all of his locks, the door slid open, and said autobot fell off balanced to the floor from where he'd evidently been braced up against that door. No doubt getting his dense digits into Soundwave's security and trying to disable it (he wouldn't have, of course not; Soundwave did nothing by halves). 

If a featureless visor could glare, it was doing so now. The blue stripe visor of his pest glared back even as the autobot pretended to be casually comfortable where he'd fallen.

"Well hey there, mech-" Jazz grinned upwards. The other officer's weapon systems had hummed online quietly, in dissonance to the easy smile. Soundwave did not understand why some bothered with false expressions if their hostility was obvious through their frame. Even as Megatron did it (many times; the other former gladiator was one for sharp grins and dangerous affability that somehow left his opponents more shaky than blatant aggression did. Soundwave was not sure he understood why their fear would be any different one way or the other and it always was unpleasant to not understand something), he did not 'get' it. 

"Fancy falling in your path," the autobot continued with ever-present smooth airs (battle systems warning Soundwave not to make a move, which only made such easy airs a taunt that could not be lashed at). The supposed humor of the statement did not amuse him. "You 'round here often?" 

As if this was not his _private_ workplace. As if Jazz didn't know. As if Jazz didn't explicitly know he was _not_ allowed here. 

Soundwave stared down at his pest in something that almost blazed like irritation. Across their bond, Laserbeak gave him a supportive affirming ping for all the emotional liveliness. 

* * *

The can sat in its cabinet untouched. One sealed, full container of distilled high grade made in this very capital city. Some of the others kept it stashed in the break room. So long as they were not on duty when they intook it, Orion had shrugged its presence off. Many of those who worked here also lived within the capital buildings. It was only fair that it had the comforts of a living space for these mechs. 

The makers of this product were not entirely new to such a thing, but they hardly had the old equipment for it. No long distilling energon, no perfected recipes. Just a crew of newsparks and mechs on the more eccentric side who'd not made it out of the war with all their mental capacities (as if any of them had; as if he had room to judge) that approached the task with enviable gusto. The sheer amount of bars and other distributors of high grade showed there was, at least, a market for this product and for the job itself. 

It was impossible not to wonder how different it would taste, would raise charge, as compared to how the coveted Praxian high grades or Vosian cubes did so in the so-called Golden Age. Such material had grown scarce in the war and during the time afterwards. He'd kept a large amount of his own protected in his quarters on board the warship for vorns before heading into deep space independently. It was untouchable. A status symbol, more than anything. The rest could use up their own hoarded supplies of artifacts that would never be replicated again with their creators long destroyed and would then look at his with envy. Status had been everything, in hindsight. It brought no pride or comfort now; or, at least, he knew it ought not and that hampered some of the ability to let it thrive. 

Would this new high grade match up to that stuff of an extinct world? Would it be smoother? More grating? Would the charge feel weak in comparison? Or, instead, would it feel too strong in some systems; an unbalance in which frameparts were overcharged and a cacophonous dissonant fighting among sensation to sensation would lead to offbalanced emotions? The gusto of its makers was certainly present, but did that equate to good energon or chaotically manifesting inebriation?

It was an interesting question to ponder, admittingly. Why else would he have opened the cabinet to look at the containers left by those who felt that their time off working deserved intoxication? Interesting question or not, he would not have a personal answer. He would not touch the blue fuel. 

He should not even be looking at it now. 

_I was a habit-_

There was an easy blame to point at, of course. The visit earlier had been entirely unsuspected and unwanted. Megatron could not believe that it hadn't been unwanted for both. How would it not have been, when fists had raised and tempers had spoken and all those reactions carefully made over the millenia to such threats had shown in honeyed practice? It made little sense for Starscream to have come and initiated this. It made no sense to be sought out after the necessary visit to Vos had already finished. 

_I was a habit, wasn't I?_

He could not pretend to deny it- He could not pretend that there was no reason on Starscream's end that had sent him to the capital earlier that cycle, no matter if, rationally, it had been senseless.

But he could try to pretend thusly and the act left him angered at the winglord's behavior without being smothered by responsibility. 

So he festered over those questions: What had possessed Starscream to come _here_? What part of him thought that seeing the warlord was a choice that would end well for either? They had both known what routine would arise. They'd both known of the anger and simpering and opened wounds that would arise. 

_I was a habit, wasn't I?_

He wished he could yell at the mech to shut up, even if it was his own mind supplying the repetition of his words. He wished he had not thought the former. But he had. Unavoidably. There was no erasing well rehearsed lines. _Shut up. You've disappointed me yet again._ Just as damaging as all those _good work_ 's, _you've a way with word_ 's, and the rest that kept the seeker at his side for vorns in a state of hope that offered all the power to Megatron: the power to praise, the power to crush that praise and betray that hope and then offer it just enough to keep it from breaking completely so that he could repeat the sensation of controlling betrayal once again.

It was all rehearsed and it was all meant for pain, the kind and the smiles and the fists and insults alike. That was the habit that Starscream had tried to return them to. Why? He knew why. He felt its familiarity like he could remember the familiar buzz of high grade when he stood here staring at it. 

And the fact that he was here, indulging like this, considering opening one cube for himself, wasting away just because of one unpleasant visit, left him dully hating Starscream for visiting. There was plenty of ire being sent Orion's way as well, because Orion had rushed to Earth without considering his or Starscream's peace of mind. There was self pity. There was other pity too, directed with a novice's ability towards the seeker that had seemed so likely to need help returning to Vos safely but refused to accept his offer to find that help. As unsavory and strange as that was, it was preferable to the former. Anger was a purely unwanted emotion. And the fact that it came so often, so very often, was punishment enough in the cycles since Unicron had let him drown in the god's idea of penalty.

Unicron had not removed anger from arising. He'd merely _poisoned_ it, ruined it, made the nausea that followed a wave of fury twofold pain to the perks of hatred's catharsis. Or, more accurately, perhaps, the time with Unicron had stripped away every pleasant part of that catharsis until the true experience of anger was undeniable: from those that felt it dished upon them unjustly, again, and again, and again until all had been lost inside that pit of eternity- 

No. That was the worst of it. If he no longer felt anger rise inside him naturally, it would be preferred. It would be the disgusting, passive, partial-being he appeared as now. But it would be easier. Far easier than having all the neuroticism of any being and then feeling that punishing reminder of Unicron's game poison any of those emotions that rose so naturally.

Anger was common. Easily elicited. And it was a practiced emotion. He need not even consciously determine it was what he felt; if the situation was familiar enough, the routine would set its own emotions in place. Starscream had to have known that. Had to have known he was putting himself in danger by coming, because Megatron's anger almost always turned physical quickly and the winglord would have been the one to face that.

Orion should have returned. This was the third cycle that he was gone for. There had been no time allocated for when he would return. From the sound of it, Orion did not know how long it would take to finish whatever he had to be on Earth for. It left him in a quiet capital. The quiet left too much room for thinking and there was no current workload to distract. 

With the treaty signed, Carcer had retreated from cybertronian space. The ship likely remained near; Megatron recognized bloodlust like a well known friend and the carcerian leader wore it with little subtlety. They would wait for a chance to usurp the planet, treaty or no. That aside, they were no longer a pressing issue hovering over the atmosphere of Cybertron in blatant threat. It left Megatron with little official work to do and that, in turn, was too much time to spend thinking. Such had led him here. If Starscream had already broken their agreement (however unspoken) to not see the other unless it could not be professionally helped, could he not break his own agreement and test how this modern high grade compared to that of old? It tended to make him more apt for aggression. Being overcharged let training rooms go destroyed with a pleasant catharsis better even than that when sober. The charge that blinded thought kept any regret from arising over having to replace what was damaged and so there was nothing but satisfaction.

It would be nice, comforting, to let this constant awareness over emotions and Unicron's continued poison and Starscream's recent visit- to let all of it- mute up. But he would not. 

The mech finally closed the cabinet up with a growl. Starscream may have reappeared today, but that had been the seeker's decision; he held no blame. If he used that visit as an excuse to get overcharged and tear some passerby apart for looking at him insultingly, the blame would be his own. It was easier to digest this frustration and guilt if the blame did not belong to him (not this time, though everything that was carried with Starscream was built by his manipulations and behaviors over the war and there was no avoiding that blame, no avoiding it at all). 

Megatron stomped from the room, displacing a few mechs outside who flinched back as he exited; mechs that had, apparently, been waiting for him to leave before going in to enjoy their energon and high grade and company. No one wanted him present. No one but his visitor today and that was too complicated to feel pleased over. 

When he reached his office, he felt no better over choosing to leave that place sober. What did he expect? Someone to notice that he had headed there, considered old habits, and then kept the pain rather than blissfully muting it? Orion Pax to know all of that had occurred and congratulate him on, what, being more decent than he had in millennia of warmongering? Unlikely. Impossible. Disgusting. All of it. 

There was a gym in one of the underlevels of the living quarters here. Megatron felt the consuming desire to head there. Instead, he ground his fists against the top of his too-small desk. The sparse decoratives consisted entirely of tablets to read, mark up, the like. Nothing frivolous. Nothing personalizing (why should there have been, when he was a puppet leader and not truly there for himself?). 

The gym would not disturb any others. Any others would leave it as soon as he stepped in. They did for every other room he entered and a training ground would be no different. If they were gone, then they would see nothing of his violence and thus they would not be disturbed. But it was too familiar. All the familiar was dangerous. 

He'd already halfway sat up before catching that fact and clinging to it. 

No. Write. Do something constructive. 

He'd never been good at that task. Playing with it during the days before the council and the original Orion's betrayal had been entertaining, but hardly all that successful. Orion had merely been easy to please or else hid embarrassment at the quality of poems. 

Still, it was not something he'd ever done during the war. And all wartime activities were too familiar. Too dangerous for himself- the last thing he wished for was the poisonous sensation of guilt over anything reminding him of what he'd experienced with Unicron.

Something peaceful, then. Something calm. That was far, far from his mind and happiness in war. 

So he sat at an impersonal desk that seemed to swallow him and wrote: wrote of the sensation of high grade, slipping into the neural net, buzzing charge over wires and systems and heating plating euphorically, erasing guilt and regret and consideration for wise actions; wrote of training drones and targets crunching beneath claws and brute force, of the feeling of metal gone soft under fury and leaving imprinted fists inside its remains, of stripping plating from the metal beneath. 

Of all he could not, would not, do but could remember oh so well the distinct descriptions of experiencing.

And when the tablet was set down once more, he did not feel that the hobby once used to make poetry for an archivist that followed him enamored was a fitting tool of communication for all the experiences he had just written down. 

The poison spread. It seemed always to spread, no matter what he touched or what direction he steeled himself for. But it seemed a side effect of too much time where he had nothing to do. He needed a drive again. Puppet leader or not, he would need to find purpose and activity or all this time spent thinking would suffocate what weak part of him remained. 


	10. Victories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Windblade is caught up on current pressing events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a few references/a few paraphrases to IDW's Windblade (volume 1, specifically).

At the start of it all, they'd been little more than tourists. Just a circle of amicas answering the call to go to a world in disarray. As if a few camiens could do anything to fix the inevitable revolts and corrupt systems. As if a few visitors could halt an unstoppable collapse. 

Officially, they'd been diplomats. Or some of them had, while the others were bodyguards. It'd felt nice to be official. It'd only fed the delusion that they were important enough, vocally powerful enough, to help. At the start, she'd still been a cityspeaker; the only to come along with that small group, in fact. And a cityspeaker's put great stake into vocal power: the most powerful ability one could have, in their view, was the ability to _listen_ and _speak_. They thought those actions powerful. Cybertron had not found the power in them. 

It'd been fun at first. They'd arrived to a city of wonder, a world of wonder. An empire so powerful, it- it- (it was a hypothetical, but they'd all seen the power of Iacon upon landing and thought that this world could help save their own fading colony). Iacon had been a huge, gilded city. The domes shone in gold, the streets were full of shiny, beautiful bots, the banners were attention striking, and all the while there lay castes and castes below such majesty that faded in more misery than Caminus did. But that was truly why they were there. They were meant to help. To answer a call that had been sent to many of the colony worlds. The amicas would bundle together after a full day at the quarters they'd been given as diplomats and laugh, fuel, gesticulate over what they'd discovered that day, openly dream about what they could help Cybertron realize. It was already a grand and glorious empire, a place of enforced peace and caste-distributed prosperity; she had hoped it could, or would, transform into a world that did not merely look appealing but was truly a planet of wonder. The place left her awestruck each new time she and her amicas would travel out to see something new, and yet, each time, she returned with a somber determination in her spark. Cybertron, with its castes and corruption, was missing compassion. 

At the start of it all, she'd rather believed in compassion. She'd believed that the freedom fighters working hard to reform the senate and caste would do so.

As a group of colonists, they'd believed in peace.

The individuals leading and pushing reform did, indeed, find a way to reform the senate and caste. The caste was removed. The senate as well. The planet was dying. The people were dead. There'd been a war and it was a war that still saw no end. 

It had begun so gradually that she and her friends had joined it without questioning. They'd worked with Alpha Trion. They'd joined the senate's new militia. They'd joined the autobots after, once the militia had split apart into factions and the protection of energon morphed into war. They'd arrived as little more than decorated tourists and become entwined in war somewhere along the way.

By the time Primus had pulled her from that battle and sent her flying into stasis, she'd been swallowed by that war. The diplomat naively landing down on Cybertron with a dream of halting its inevitable collapse was _gone._

They'd all believed in peace once. 

When the war had begun in earnest, they'd grieved and raved and sat confused all at once. The populace of the colony world idolized the original homeworld even as they honored Caminus himself. They'd known of corruption, vaguely. They'd come to combat it, after all. They had not assumed Cybertron would mean war. Endless war, endless pain. 

_This shouldn't be Cybertron,_ Windblade had mourned silently at Chromia's side once, looking out over a leveled town. _This shouldn't be_ **_me_ ** _either._

Vorns passed, war grew (if it could be possible) worse, amica after amica fell to its unforgiving jaws. 

Until, by the time Primus had stolen her away, the last of that small group didn't believe in peace anymore. 

* * *

* * *

They'd been ushered by Ratchet to the medbay before anything else could be said. Orion himself was then shoved to the doorway so that he was not in either's space. Nothing less really could've been expected from the medic, he thought bemusedly. Windblade herself tried to insist she was fine but Ratchet took nothing of it.

Caked layers of dust were laboriously scraped off while Windblade attempted to answer questions on why and how she was not dead (what little got through of the story was fantastical). Rust left the medic cursing. The angry words didn't stop even after he'd applied ointment. Windblade continuously shifted around where she was sitting. The mech in the doorway was sympathetic to her plight. Considering that she was apparently in stasis for so long, of course she'd want to move around rather than having to hold still any longer.

Unfortunately, that was not what was allowed when the preliminary exam was finished.

"You'll have to be here a while," Ratchet said as he set his tools into their cabinets. 

The bot on the berth gave him a sour expression. 

"Ep-ep-! None of that, I don't want to hear anything. You sit. That's final."

Even as her mouth opened, Windblade didn't find immediate words. Her optics glanced to the doorway, where Orion gave her a helpless expression. It was amusing to see someone else under Ratchet's overbearing power once in a while.

"Meantime, while I get ready for more thorough examinations prepared, how about you talk with Orion? You need to be caught up on whatever you missed when collecting all this rust."

Windblade glanced to the doorway in curiosity at the name Ratchet had given, but didn’t question it. 

"He's right," Orion agreed. "And you'll have to get taken off the MIA database and registered as a living citizen of Cybertron or Vos or independent, whichever you decide on."

While her mouth parted and optics darted between both, Ratchet came up to his side. 

"I'll try to get most of that ready and bring it over here, unless we already have some of that process readied at this base..."

The medic looked up to interrupt, unimpressed. "-you were hoping to hand that over to someone like Magnus, weren't you."

It didn't even bother to sound like the cadence for a question. Orion didn't try to argue. 

"Only if he's here. And no, I wasn't trying to hand it all off. He just happens to enjoy that sort of paperwork-" the human term slipped through easily, even as Windblade paused a moment to look confused at it "-more than I do."

Ratchet almost smirked, though it stopped too soon after beginning to fully qualify. 

"And here you were once an archivist."

But he wasn't anymore.

But the people on his world wanted to see him as a Prime. 

Little matter if he still longed for the shelves of data chips and cylinders from Alpha Trion's libraries, when Cybertron had all but lost all of its literature and historical records. The archives made for the new world had only five stellar cycles of growing. The one Orion Pax had worked in had contained the words of millions of those cycles. Little matter.

"Ok. Enough."

The bitterness of his lost peace and enjoyment over a brief, if not quite all-natural, banter with Ratchet ended in unison at Windblade's voice piping up. 

He turned back to her. Ratchet slipped past him (from the sounds of it, to online the decontamination bath), leaving him alone with the burden of, well, explanations. She was right. That was enough banter or mourning or thoughts from him when she was the one brought awake out of time to a confusing new world.

"Thank you," Windblade inclined her head, a slight grin present, when he turned to give her full focus. "Now. You heard me earlier, when I said I was put into stasis by Primus. I guess I should elaborate on that. And you should elaborate on...everything."

Despite how she laughed at that, Orion felt a touch of trepidation over doing so. It was doubtful she'd nod at every piece of that explanation and accept the current world without any unhappiness. 

"This planet knows about cybertronians," she started first when his apprehension kept him quiet. "And I had a...vision, of sorts, I suppose it could be said. It felt a bit like- like a merging."

A cityspeaker and a titan. Orion found himself surprised, if a little uneasy. From all of Optimus's memories, she had not talked about her position as a cityspeaker for many, many vorns before her disappearance. 

"This planet...It's alive. Like Cybertron is, with Primus at the core. This place-"

Orion stepped in to answer.

"Unicron. Its core is Unicron, yes."

The seeker shook her head, amusement merging with disbelief. 

"So this is a unique planet. Is Unicron the reason why the populace here knows of us? Autobot Code enforces a policy of keeping ourselves unrevealed on planets that don't know of us or civilizations in general, but out there..."

Out there, from her perspective, they not only had revealed themselves, but the likes of Megatron himself sat on their billboard advertisements. 

This would be a long story.

Orion vented before turning Ratchet's chair around to slump onto it and face her. 

"The humans do not know of Unicron. Only his body remains underneath this world's surface. His antispark has been contained and will never give energy to the form inside this core again. So it is not so much Unicron as it was ourselves who revealed to the humans..." 

Or it was the independent rogue Airachnid's doing, at any rate.

"You said something about Cybertron and Vos earlier," Windblade interrupted. 

He had. He should have thought better of it. Given her a datapad that went through every event since the war dwindled down on a thoroughly dead planet and let her read. 

"Are there still autobot outposts on Cybertron or in its airspace?" she prodded. "Are these names you've all put for places on this alien world instead even though the cons are in the controlling position here? What-...where?"

_How?_

_Why?_

"I spoke of Cybertron. It lives. It was fully revived."

And the outposts she had known before dropping into stasis were gone, replaced by cities and sovereign states that were, officially, jointly controlled. He would tell her of preceding events as thoroughly as he could, but how would that context do in letting her adjust to that news of Cybertron's life and current populace?

* * *

As it turned out, the answer was _not exceptionally well._

Windblade heard his words politely. She let him reach over to tap and direct on the datapad he'd briefly left to find. Let him show certain footage and maps or pictures of the dead world left in the wake of the war. 

Let him too passively, truly.

He'd always known Windblade to be passionate. Highly respectful of his position as a Prime and its connection with Primus (he had theorized, as Optimus, that it was based in her seeing Primes as the voicepieces of Primus, similar to how cityspeakers spoke for Titans). Professional in ranking, vicious and casual in combat. Not passive. Even when she'd been much younger and 'bright eyed', the humans would call it, she'd been passionate for helping Cybertron find empathy and basic sentient rights. Passion adapted into a rigorous vendatta against the decepticons, but it was still always present. 

This left him guilty. It was inevitable that someone would tell her all the tragedy that had occured in her absence, but to be the one who's words were causing her to grow stiltedly passive...

They reached the end of the war: the final battle for preventing Earth's cyberforming, Cybertron's revival, Unicron's defeat, the fledgling start of the current cybertronian system- 

and there, she brought it all to a stop.

"The thing I found here..." she muttered. "I thought- I thought, maybe, Cybertron was gone, all the way gone, it was almost to that point when I went into stasis, so the armies spread out and this planet was run across and the decepticons had overthrown it- I thought that you were here, that Optimus was here, underground, to- to-"

What?

Save it? 

Save Earth through continued war?

He'd kept his bots in disguise during their stay here for the main purpose of avoiding bringing humanity and their planet into the spotlight and making them a decepticon target. Or, perhaps, the _war's_ target. Decepticon attacks were met with autobot defenses and that process repeated again and again and again until the very land they were defending was too singed to be worth fighting over. Such had been the war on Cybertron. Such he would never, not as Optimus, not as Orion Pax, bring to Earth. 

"Earth is Cybertron's ally," he spoke instead. "We primarily made such a publicized alliance to show other civilizations that we are willing to trade and ally with organics and aliens."

Windblade did not seem to register that. He attempted a different tactic.

"The war is over. We have no inclination to begin it again on this planet and drive it to its death. Cybertron has already paid such a full price. It has been given a second chance now," Orion gestured to the picture of a living Cybertron currently left open on the datapad in her tight grip. 

There was no reply for a moment. The grip continued to tense, to tighten and release. 

"What the frag..." Windblade finally asked, or stated, or pleaded flatly to no one at all. "No. No. You can't tell me they're all alive, all free, you can't tell me that- I fought for more than that, Optimus! We all did! We fought, we died, we lost everything, so that we could rest in the knowledge that we won at the end!"

It hurt. It hurt, to understand, to often share, her opinion. Five stellar cycles was not enough to dull the grief and anger left for him because of sadistic actions and painful war. Some days, it did not feel like victory. It felt like undeserved, unjust forgiveness. The system of his own design felt like a defeated surrender. 

But Orion had believed it was the right compromise to make shortly after his revival and Optimus's relinquishment of the matrix. He believed it so today. The world lived again, the war had not revived, there was no caste system, there was no gilded pretension. 

It was a failure and a victory all at once. He had determined to consider it the latter, for the sake of all the war-weary and the newsparks and the MTO vehicons that were now living happily enough in Well City and over the wildlands of a fresh Cybertron. 

Windblade did not have the chance to see all that life, hope, satisfaction, safety, yet. 

"I-...Frag. Frag it all, frag them. I wanted them- they deserved to-"

"Die?" Orion filled in softly. "Rust away, sparks caged? As half of an already infinitesimal population celebrated and the risk of rebellion, of newsparks or returning neutrals or alien federations, feeling that power was undeserved and renewing battle, lay over their celebration? How much of Cybertron would be left after that was finally satisfied? How many cybertronians would?"

The look she shot him was poisonous, but her helm turned away from his sight fast. The dulled plating left in ornamental armor on the back of her head offered little insight into her expression. Orion leaned back and synthesized a sigh. It was probably best he started finding the files he needed to get Windblade situated on Cybertron. He needed to know more answers for his vision, he needed to know her part in it and whatever message she perhaps could have gleaned from Primus before the evident stasis, but he felt responsible for easing her way into the chaotic world she'd been awakened to. If the threat from that vision was not immediate, there would be time to discuss what the vague message could have meant (and Ratchet would not budge on letting either of them leave early, at any rate). Prepare for it. Perhaps get some back up if it would need to be fought. If this trip had left him with anything, it was the acceptance that he'd likely be better off with another veteran at his side in adventures like this. His silly apprehension at a possible fight before seeing Windblade was proof enough that he ought to swallow pride down and accept Jazz's next offer for back up. 

He stood up from Ratchet's chair and left the seeker where she was sitting far too still for someone so eager to move just breems before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just remember, all you cybertronian medics out there, to always give you patient's rust-eze medicated bumper ointment for all their rust problems


	11. Capability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jazz takes a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like last chapter, the first scene here is a flashback.

The work could have been described as tedious, but Orion had never found issue with its tedium. Almost surprisingly, considering the energy he seemed to exhibit sometimes, his coworker did not ever complain about it being dry work either. Jazz did do more of substance than Orion, granted. He analyzed communication. He was able to see so much of what Cybertron thought through words and forwarded messages. Orion just archived the coded data.

But he found a certain peace in the repetition. It left him calm when he would leave and head towards Kaon. In a few jours, he would be done and then travel to that city would be his immediate action. There was a speech late into the cycle. Orion did not wish to miss it.

When Jazz asked him why he was so happy ("Big plans tonight?" being the exact words), he'd answered honestly enough. Then, it had been his turn to reach out.

"Would you like to come with me to listen tonight?" Orion offered. 

Jazz shook his head. 

"Nah, sorry. That scene ain't for yours truly." With a small tilt of the head, the mech elaborated. "I like what gets said, but the whole crowds and cameras thing isn't how I want to get to hear it."

Considering that Jazz seemed to work for something illicit on the side, it was probably wise for him to avoid being witnessed at the speeches of revolutionaries.

"But you want to hear it-...Wait, do you read-"

There weren't many papers published yet (and many had been removed mysteriously from accessibility quickly after their posting), but Orion had still been involved in transcribing those speeches for the populace of Iacon. If what he was doing to help was succeeding to the point in which someone from Alpha Trion's employ had accessed the words...

"Yeah," Jazz grinned lazily over at him. 

Orion offered a little smile back before turning to his work station once more. There was still too much work to do to spend it all talking. And besides, they technically weren't meant to talk at all about potentially sensitive subjects. There were so many borders and barriers in this job, in his world. So much neither of them were allowed to do; mixing information that they both worked on, talking on what they saw on the communications grid. Those times that Orion analyzed rather than just recorded could have landed him into difficulties with the senate. 'Could have', if Jazz showed any interest in reporting his behavior. 

One of the others he'd worked with in this job before Jazz had been very quiet. Attempts to talk with him had led to anger and frustration from the other. One cycle, he just hadn't come in at all. Jazz had shown up a while later, smiles and music ready, and Orion almost hadn't bothered to question the former's disappearance in the wake of a preferable coworker. He'd asked Alpha Trion regardless and learned his absent coworker had been caste demoted because of potential affiliation with a mech who'd been collecting data from the hall of records. It'd unsettled Orion. Made him feel close to ill, though unable to do a thing about it. He hadn't been friends with Oilsilt, mostly because the mech hadn't let him be, but Orion could not feel anything but unease when someone was sent lower into the caste. There was no recovering, never was. The only mech who'd ever seemed to take the shame and difficulties of being crushed beneath the caste and turn them into the strength to crawl up it...

Jazz had been the one to introduce him to the _'celebrity's_ existence and that instance had involved both sharing information they were not allowed to share. 

The borders and barriers of this job didn't keep Jazz alienated. His coworker was more than willing to chat. It was nice. It was like having a friend here, and _here_ was growing increasingly oppressive feeling to him. Having an ally with him left the job feeling a little more safe. What happened to Oilsilt wouldn't have to happen to either of them. 

If the reforms he was helping Megatron push took hold, it wouldn't happen to anyone again. 

* * *

* * *

They'd talked briefly again a little later, while Ratchet was in the midst of administering some antiviral code or other. His vision was explained and then he'd asked Windblade if she understood what any of it meant.

"I'll dig up everything I can," she said professionally. 

"Whatever you can find, I appreciate it." Orion smiled thankfully, but the camien did not turn her head enough to see it.

It could have gone better. It could have gone worse too. And he'd rather give attention to the latter. Optimism had always been a trait he saw the world through. 

With that, he'd left once more and went in search of one of the consultants here. The popularity of this base had ended up causing multiple additional structures outside, stretching into the wall of the plateau and joining to the main room. It was not as if the base was a secret location any longer, so the obviousness of such structures was no longer a great issue. That the main human consultants wanted to remain working out of this spot in Jasper only added to the allowance of such extra bulk. 

Orion rather liked all the consultants. The original liaison, agent Fowler, still remained working closely with the leaders of Cybertron. Besides him, there were the original three humans: Jack Darby had gone through the military branch for Unit:E and come out with colors and honors and a great sense of responsibility that still went subverted when he was being teased by one of the other consultants or running haywire with Smokescreen (as well as growing increasingly well experienced in running human interference in missions with Arcee); Miko Nadakai was determined to spend as much of her time on Cybertron as possible, even still, and her contact over the years had eventually landed her a position 'part time' on the living planet (something that her peers and elders did not always approve of, but she had reached the human baseline of adulthood three stellar cycles before and was no longer held back); Raf Esquivel also frequented Cybertron often, between working in the tech realm at Unit:E alongside Ratchet, a fellow consultant, and was well renowned in Unit:E for his unparalleled understanding of IT (something that multiple cybertronians as well as humans were still, to put it lightly, _fascinated_ by). There were others who weren't necessarily official in the way those three were (as those three had dutifully gone through Unit:E training and education). June Darby continued to be considered the queen of the insecticons of Jasper. Ultra Magnus's assistant Verity Carlo had gotten an honorary position at Unit:E and used it to boss others around. And there were plenty of other humans around that Orion had never truly talked with. They mulled about inside the secondary structures, where there was less risk of being stepped on by either Ratchet or the less-careful Wheeljack. 

So it was to one of those warehouses that he wandered now. Parked outside of it was a familiar ship. It was a relief to see; if that was here, then Magnus would likely be on this continent. He always prefered to take the _Iron Will_ rather than Ratchet's groundbridge when he was visiting a human government. 

When Orion arrived at the ramp for the ship, it was to find it closed. He knocked anyways and waited dutifully for a response.

"Hey, yo, you!" a human's voice yelled up at him. Orion hid his smile. Perfect.

The human had her arms crossed when he turned to look at her; the dark blue uniform didn't match the way she'd rolled up sleeves and otherwise marred its appearance to match her flair better. 

"Good day," he greeted. "Do you know where Ultra Magnus is?"

Verity's posture remained daring. 

"Maybe. Why do you need him?"

This was how, a few breems later, Orion found that he was sitting on one of the cybertronian-sized seats of the warehouse telling Magnus's assistant about Windblade's arrival. The only interruptions came from the occasional yelling between Verity and Jack, who was on the far side of the structure working hard at something in contrast to how the two of them sat talking. 

"'K. So you picked someone up and she's a bit mad about everything. And you think she'll feel less wild if she gets on Cybertron and sees it all. Am I getting this right?" Without waiting for confirmation, she kept going. "And what do you need Mags for?"

To be his usual unflappable stiff self and see if that would also help Windblade relax with the sheer familiarity (he wasn't a Prime anymore and the war had ended in compromise and Cybertron had been revived, but Magnus was almost unchanging compared to the Magnus of Windblade's last cycles before stasis).

"Because he'll need to be here as well before we can head back. He'll manage to process a new cybertronian for Cyberton better than anyone else can."

The additional reasoning seemed to sway her enough into giving her 'boss' a call for his sake. 

"Ahh." Verity gave a little tilt of her head as her eyes squinted pointedly at his comment. "I bet he will."

And Orion was willing to bet that Windblade would feel less distraught at Magnus's presence than his own, for now. It was only an added bonus that Magnus would be handling the tedious process of paperwork.

* * *

It'd been two cycles already since he'd gone. Granted, Orion hadn't offered him an ETA for return. Visions and mystery didn't exactly come with a tag that said how long investigation would take. It would've made life a little easier if they did, but where would the fun have been in that? Spontaneity was one of life's big perks. 

There was a call by the end of the two cycles mark. Jazz was free enough to take it. His cameras could keep on rolling through footage even while he chatted. It wasn't like he wasn't used to multitasking. 

So he'd finished buffing out the little dent that falling on the floor of Soundwave's den left him with and then tossed the buffer across the mess of a floor in his private quarters. 

"Yeah?" he accepted the ping for a comm, ready to lounge back, arms crossed behind his head, visor bright, on his berth and chat. Getting an update from Orion would probably be more interesting than watching footage from the drone he'd slipped into Soundwave's big secretive workplace when the other spy had been too distracted at the autobot crashed out on his floor (that, unfortunately, he wasn't able to wave away as a purposeful act) to notice whatever slipped through his servo to crawl for the shadows. 

_«Hello Jazz»_ Orion started, voice as slow and steady as ever. _«I thought I should update you on the status of my search here»_

"Please do," the smaller autobot replied. "I gotta wonder what's taking you so long to head back."

It left him a little worried Orion had run into danger and possibly fragged up in combat, but he wouldn't bother saying that much.

 _«What's the issue?»_ the other prodded with a touch of amusement. _«Do you have somewhere to be?»_

A million places and none at all. What'd it matter?

"You could say that. Just hurry on back, will ya? I got a bar or two I wanna hit the dance floor of," Jazz grinned. 

_«And you can't just head to one now? Your shift ends like everyone else's does»_

Lies, in a way. A lot of people had shifts that ended. People like Orion? They were on the job as a fancy figurehead for a Prime all the time. Every cycle and every moment of that cycle as soon as somebody else caught sight of him. Jazz didn't have that same sort of job. It was worse, in a way. At least Orion could find himself a cozy archive room (still seen by at least two other cybertronians, of course, but getting spotted by the cameras of two outdated officers wasn't the same as getting swarmed by civilians, evidently) and let himself _be_ himself instead of a leader for once. 

Jazz didn't even know what that was in relation to him. 

Instead of pointing out that he didn't even have official shifts in the first place, let alone a schedule that made him take time off, the spy argued back with a different route.

"Nah, boss mech. You know I can't just up and walk away from here if no one's out to _supervise_."

There was a rough sound on the commline, as if Orion garbled his first response up before it could come cleanly. 

_«The inhabitants of our, well, living space, don't need you to be supervising them. They're all capable adults themselves.»_

"Oh, sure," he grinned again, wide and sharp. "Very capable. I know that much pretty well."

Every survivor did, in one way or other. Some just vaguely, subconsciously, not yet attributing certain losses or survivals to the top of the pyramid even as that top directed and mitigated the ensuing events _everywhere_ throughout the war. Others- mainly officers like him- ...well. They knew. They knew intimately just what their enemies were _capable_ of.

 _«I wish you'd leave it, every once in a while»_ Orion finally spoke up after the halt in conversation grew tellingly long. _«You really like getting out. You deserve to take the opportunities to go out and..."hit"...the establishments that you enjoy»_

Heh. Same as always. Good old Pax hadn't been much for a fun time even back before the whole Prime matrix-of-leadership thing became infamous for its sheer inability to party. They'd been good acquaintances back then: breaking rules that could have gotten either imprisoned and never ratting the other out, sometimes going to some fun little rave or whatnot. Jazz had a good time. Orion's measure of a good time was mulling over drab policies under the heavy arm of a dangerous mech that spoke real charismatically about those dry writings. It wasn't what Jazz would want to get dragged along to. They understood it. They still worked well together, talked good together, even if they differed on how they wanted to spend their offtime.

"I got no issue waiting. What'dya take me for, Pax? Impatient?" 

There was a laugh (his end only). 

He could call himself many things, but impatient wasn't really one that struck him much. So many of his best jobs had involved vorns of patience. The _long game._ He let himself look real active, but he could play that game better than any of them. 

Or maybe not any of them, but did a virtual sparkless husk count in such a competition? Anything (any _one_ ) that _null_ could wait an eternity. Living, burning sparks didn't have an indefinite measure of patience even possible for them to call on. 

"You just get back here and I'll let my little self get a scrap of time for fun," he continued after the bark of laughter. 

Also a bit of a joke (he'd laugh again, but it just didn't appeal as much now). Jazz didn't need to go into an environment of sick beats and strobe lights and overcharge to have fun. He got a kick out of doing this here, now. He always had enjoyed it. Showing off on a dance floor was all good and fun. Beating someone in a game over and over until they realized that they could not beat their unknown opponent? It left his optics smiling under their visor just to think about it. 

_«It may have to wait, unfortunately»_

Amusingly, Orion did make it sound unfortunate. His tone was serious and regretful for Jazz's sake. The guy didn't need to worry so much about little ol' Jazz's fun; it wasn't Orion's job to feel upset over the idea that his spy was unhappy. 

_«I'm bringing an old friend back with me to Cybertron. We have much to discuss together and with others, yourself included, about what little we know of the coming threat»_

Cryptic. 

Oh, delightful. Jazz did _love_ the cryptic.

_«While it may be another cycle before Ratchet and Magnus are done with her, I hope that we will take no longer than that to return.»_

And wouldn't it be nice to hear more details in person? Jazz believed in his transmission and comm safety, but it didn't stop a slight paranoia over the chance that anything said over a distance could be heard by prying audials. It was a sense he'd found inescapable since vorns before the war had even started. 

"You best do that," he said through another smile, knowing it could be heard by Orion and likely left the other mech reassured to hear. "Don't leave me here with the cons for too long."

It was getting boring. They never did anything. The long game was only a game if his opponents had a goal he could subvert. And, even without anyone showing threats, he couldn't stop watching, waiting, growing more and more stagnant the longer it took them to continue doing nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	12. Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dylan begins working in earnest for his alien guest. His secretary grows more confused over her boss's recent behavior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!

The next time that Carly met her boss at the parking lot, he presented in complete opposition to what it was previously. Rather than looking rumpled, Dylan was completely clean. Moreso, even, than his usual attire. Normally, he'd come in with an effort for style and still a casual enough flair for his own comforts sake ( _who knew_ how _uncomfortable_ it must have been to be in a pressed suit all day while he watched soap operas on the couch of his office, after all), not this exaggerated unless he was meeting with members of the board or potential new investors or something.

Biting down on that flare of sarcasm she hadn't intended to mentally air, Carly handed her boss his coffee and began to report the day's agenda. 

Just like he had the last time, Dylan held absolutely no interest in the agenda. 

Carly didn't like it. She didn't like the two drastic changes in appearances she'd seen of late. They were the result of...of something, and she had no idea what that _something_ was. Being left in the dark was hardly ideal. It would be unpleasant to find out hours or pay would be getting cut in some way or other. But instead of saying anything about that or any other aspect of his recent behavior, Dylan only interrupted her droning of the agenda once they'd reached his office.

"Oh! Carly, did Vaughn Land Rentals call?" he turned to her briskly to ask. It cut over a completely unrelated topic and the secretary took a moment to reel in confusion before the words really registered. Did...? No? She'd never called any such company though and why would a business like that be calling unless it was calling _back_?

"No, Mr. Gould. I-"

"Oh," he interrupted again, seemingly wilting before perking up once more (when had he ever been a person that made expressions like that?). "Well, if they do, send the call to me, wouldn't you?"

Not even a pet name before he slipped into the office and the door shut soundly on her? It wasn't characteristic of him. 

The secretary stood there- tablet in hand and mouth open mid-question- a short minute before turning stiffly and leaving the slammed door behind in confusion.

* * *

There was a little voice of terror inside, telling him to run. It'd been an ever present annoyance ever since his otherworldly visitor first arrived. It was the sort of inevitable mortal instinct that wheedled at him with comments like _why would you be whistling? excited? walking towards this instead of running? why have you rushed in your free time to continue searching for this thing's orders, as though you're at its beck and call?_ Personally, Dylan wished it would shut up. If he wanted to whistle and be happy about his upcoming meeting, he'd rather like his whole mind to hop on board rather than a tiny piece trying to take the happiness away.

It was with that attitude that the little voice of terror may have continued speaking, but it went rather muted and drowned out of concern. Dylan hadn't had enough chances in the last five years to feel this sort of hope and importance- a sort of importance that really did function as a rather enjoyable form of happiness for him. Sure, there was more than a bit of apprehension, but that was healthy, normal. It didn't need to be terror. It didn't need to be judgement for getting a suit dry-cleaned just for today's meeting, as though it was wrong or something. If he wanted to show off for his most unique customer ever, he didn't want his brain flooded with thoughts about how stupid trying to show off was when he should be fleeing.

It was annoying, frankly. And besides, how exactly was he supposed to flee from some ethereal ‘ _herald’_ of a being?

Speaking of the man- er, creature-, the empty office ceased being empty. Like a ghost, the figure materialized without preemption. One moment nonexistent, the next and the humanoid was standing at the windows where Dylan had first witnessed him. The featureless robes remained from the last two visits, almost fuzzy as if they weren't fully developed. Made. Existent. It was weird. Dylan didn't waste time trying to explain it. The same went for the guest's face. There weren't even feet visible and the human hadn't looked close and investigative to check for some. The best he could go with was just focusing on the other's face, since it was less fuzzy and undeveloped in comparison to the 'body' most of the time. It'd go lax and featureless if Dylan wasn't staring directly at it, which was rather unsettling in all honesty. 

There was an excited, if awkwardly nervous, greeting and then the human and alien got to work. A few hours went by searching catalogs and making lists. Twelve was seemingly very patient. A few months, he said, wouldn't mean too much. Dylan wasn't sure he believed it, but luckily he was pretty sure this wasn't going to take that long in general. Weeks, yes. Months? No more than one or two, he'd guess. It would depend on how willing certain _providers_ were.

It wasn't the nicest thought. He'd been attempting to ignore that inevitable because he didn't have to reach out to those groups yet, but eventually denial and deliberate ignorance would be impossible

"I put in a few orders last night after work," Dylan informed his guest. Employer, he supposed he could say. As if anyone on Earth had ever had an employer quite like this one. "Hopefully, we'll have a slot of land outside the city to build your gate on. Considering its size, it'll be a better bet out there than in a metropolis. It'll be some time before the items to build it arrive and before we get cleared for the rented lot, but it's not any of that which is going to delay us. That would be the catalog, or lack thereof, for the rest. I'm still looking for the more...unique, shall we say, parts."

And Twelve didn't grow impatient or frustrated at the news. Heh. Take that, little fear voice. His customer wasn't going to flay him open for not moving impossibly fast. There was nothing to worry about: inhuman or not, the being seemed to understand how to act without rushing human process in events like this. 

If anything, the way they were able to sit across the desk and look over the blueprints only reassured this point. If Dylan asked questions, they were met with answers rather than some sort of monster skin erupting and attacking.

"Explain this to me again," he said at one point, as though to prove this to himself. 

Instead of laughing at technological ignorance or growing angry, Twelve cocked his head and then began to do what Dylan had wanted him to. Even as most of the words went over his head, he attempted to understand it. This plan was vague and grandiose and he would be key in it. 

"Hey." Dylan spoke up a few minutes after they silently started packing up. 

Scarlet eyes set on him. They were still terrifying, but it'd only been a few days since they had begun this interchange. A human like him couldn't get used to things like red eyes that fast, now could they. It was intimidating enough just to face those human allies he'd inherited from his father's business workings, and those people were still humans. Not aliens or some sort of supernatural being or something. 

Still, the expression was not hostile. The curve of Twelve's mouth hinted at affability rather than danger. Given time, maybe Dylan could stop his nerves from firing on high alert every moment in proximity with the evidently-not-human individual. 

"Thanks. You know, for explaining it again." The human tried to shrug laxly. "It's pretty complicated schematics you've got there and I'd rather know where the parts I'm getting need to be put in order to make these things without having them blow up in my face."

The slight curve broke into a full smile. 

"Of course-" the alien replied. "I'd never wish you to misunderstand any part of what you're making."

For something that looked like a noseless mannequin at times, he could be rather expressive at other moments. It reminded him a bit of how uncannily human the cybertronian aliens were when emoting. But this wasn’t one of those. This was his own alien. His own special alien that had deigned to go to _him_ out of every human on Earth that could’ve helped and chose _him_ to give the story of his creation and plan to. That made him a bit special too, Dylan was happy to assume.


	13. Alien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Windblade remembers a dying Cybertron during the senate's days of power. She remembers a dead planet that armies fought atop for vorns even as fuel supplies dwindled.  
> But she never really remembered seeing a Cybertron that could truly be called alive before this point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been focusing more on finals and deciding which prompt to write for secret solenoid this year, so this update was a bit more delayed than I'd have liked. 
> 
> I've been watching too much Cyberverse lately and it shows in this chapter XD  
> And, as with the rest of this series, Aligned Continuity Canon? What's that? (it's not really followed here at all with some of the mentions in this chapter, such as crystal city which is definitely not going after what aligned continuity info detailed)

The last time she'd seen Cybertron, it'd been in the latter portion of civil war. Even before war had begun to tear apart the surface of the planet, Cybertron had been dying. It was one of the reasons that Orion Pax had been offered the Primehood. It was one of the reasons Megatron of Kaon had been handed a militia by the senate. Both, in turn, were reasons the senate fell. 

Orion Pax would not have kept the senate's status quo even if he had taken the Matrix on that cycle. Megatron had never planned to be satisfied alone by the leash tugging his militia's movements. The council likely knew this and had merely hoped one or the other would be pacifying enough offers to win enough favor that survival would stay on the table. 

Windblade had arrived during this time of slow upheaval before the fateful council meeting over the future Prime of Cybertron and witnessed the glorious cities in her own optics. And glorious they had been, in all their gilded way. But the lands outside these city states were not. 

Cybertron's core was far from the dead state the war led it to then, but it was weakened. It was poisoned. 

It was dying.

Energon was not just the fuel and lifeblood of cybertronians. It was a vital part of the planet itself. In its absence, the world weakened, poison seeping in its place, drying reservoirs and killing the thriving life in caves and caverns and hidden crystal dens. 

Iacon was so very awestriking and yet Windblade remembered finding herself in disbelief at the state of the world outside its borders. It was horrid enough to witness the darkness of the city- of lower streets, of the caste, of those left to starve while locked out of any jobs at all that could offer them the money to feed themselves. But it was comprehensible, in a sick way. She could hate it, but she understood that it existed. Comprehending a planet being poisoned? That was less easy a mental task. 

But she was a cityspeaker. To most, that was a position incomprehensible. Though she had arrived here with her friends to see if they could help at all in the tumultuous social situation here, Windblade still found herself thinking occasionally on what she'd seen after flying out into the wildernesses of Cybertron.

The stories told back on Caminus about the homeworld were so much more full of life and wonder. There were tales about the mysterious and beautiful crystal city. There were stories about the dangerous but enticing argon sea. There were more myths and more songs passed down through those camiens that remained relatively cut off from the original homeworld and Windblade would have been lying to say she hadn't been excited to see the places eternalized in such tales.

The Cybertron she arrived to was not the stuff of fantastical legends. Its surface and undersurface layers were either parts of the grand machine of the council or they were nothing. Not untamed, wild, mystical places of wonder. Nothing at all. 

Just dry rock and dull metals and the dust of what had once lived. 

That was the hardest aspect of it: all those stories had been built in true locations. The legends of Thunderhowl and the many adventures told of his patrolling the jungles to protect crystal city were based in a real set of places. What were those twisting, wild jungles now? What were the walls and cathedrals and creatures of crystal city now? Dust. Settled on a dried out landscape that had no energon to give it growth anymore. The argon sea was nothing but a pit too deep to crawl into safely, but she found pictures of what was down there in the archives for visitors. Rather than nigh-liquid gases and strange creatures and eldritch mysteries in the deeps, there were dry walls leading down deeper than any other recorded hole on Cybertron to nothing but a dry foundation. Whatever structures and places may have existed there once had become dust when the substance of the sea was no longer produced by Cybertron's internal processes. Energon, gases, newsparks, everything--production was abnormally strained when compared to the young Cybertron of old. 

Somewhere in that core, Primus was weakening. The energon that was still being produced in the planet was only mined by contractors and the uncontracted would not risk trying to find energon of their own when the senate's penalties were in place. There were no streams of energon cutting over a polished landscape. There were no pools and lakes of living fuel. There were no other forms of life left on the planet naturally, no matter if the archives did show evidence of their existence. Sparkling geysers, bubbling springs, gone- gone, gone, dead, the first symptoms of the planet's fatal sentence. 

Maybe it could have been slowed, stopped, even reversed. Windblade had certainly been the naive idealist that would have hoped for that during her early time there. And it had been a part of the reason she and Chromia specifically from their group had decided to enlist. The militia was intended to be the harbinger of incoming change. If the senate was willing to authorize it, then they would be willing to shift and change and evolve in other matters as well. They fought for the world's shrinking supply of energon while Windblade tried to stay positive that the fighting in general was a short thing. Soon, there would be no need for it. Soon, the world's supply of energon would be available to all cybertronians rather than just the higher castes. And soon, the planet's core itself may start to heal and more energon would naturally flow once more.

After Optimus Prime arrived where Orion Pax had once been and tensions grew still more and factions split and formed, Windblade altered that hope. Now, she aimed for the autobots to achieve a quick victory so that in peacetime the rebuilding system would abolish the caste of old and the planet would halt its speeded race towards death.

By the time Primus had possessed her form and sent her into that trance, Cybertron was dead. Even if the core flickered on, only that core did. There was no energy at all for it to reach the surface of the world. Fighting that had begun for freedom and peace and access to life through access to energon morphed to fighting for the former two reasons alone. Energon supplies had been cached offworld and some talked still on the idea of synthesizing the fuel; it had to be talked on, had to be hoped. Even if they should destroy every last decepticon (Windblade knew an older part of her, the remnants of the young cityspeaker she once was, ought to be disturbed that this was one of the options she thought of rather than truce or surrender- but she could hardly humor such a part of herself anymore after watching friends torn apart or melted or riddled with holes and witnessing plagues kill hundreds of noncombatants and seeing a dying planet give up entirely to go cold), they would have only the comfort of that victory as they too died on a planet that no longer produced the fuel they needed for life. Their days were numbered. The caches would run out eventually and then where would they stand? It was a terrifying thought. Most chose not to think it. 

When she was brought to the center of the dead world to face Primus, Windblade managed to wonder about this subject briefly enough. If Primus still lived, however poisoned his physical form was through Megatron's warfare, then could the planet? If they were to do more than _win-_ if they were to _survive_ , to repopulate, they would need new energon creation rather than just the dwindling supplies of hidden caches. There were the occasional asteroid and world that produced energon or a close equivalent, but many had been drained during the Expansion and the rest would not be enough to fuel a city, let alone a population.

So Cybertron had to be revived. But once dead, how could it be? Cybermatter was a natural substance that had no way of being created. 

There had been vorns spent warring after Cybertron had died. Windblade had considered this through all those vorns and had no comfort, no solution, to offer such worries. So she'd stopped focusing on the inevitability of cybertronian extinction and focused instead on the moment. For the most part, that entailed battling. That last cycle before stasis, she'd been doing just that. Participating in the air support of a battle that the autobots were set to win before it had begun. The decepticon stragglers caught in that canyon had never held a chance and Windblade couldn't formulate any feelings on that one way or another. 

The war had taken everything from their species when its killing of Cybertron handed a death sentence to cybertronians as a whole, but it had also taken everything from her. Her friends from Caminus were gone. Caminus itself was gone as well. Cityspeaking was nothing but a painful spot in cortex memories with all known Titans faded from life; it had grown painful before the last death, even, with the way Titans had shifted from prioritizing their citizens to becoming war machines for one side or other. It had lost its purpose and she had lost her taste for it. Those new friends made through the war were either as broken as her or dead. Chromia was nothing but a few parts leftover and a dusty memorial. 

Windblade wanted to see the autobots win. She would do everything in her power to aid Optimus Prime. But she did not really think that victory would ever end in witnessing the glory of a living Cybertron again.

To her, it was just a few cycles ago that she'd fought in that rusty canyon and thought such thoughts on the future of Cybertron. It made it all the more startling to step through that spacebridge alongside Orion Pax and see the alien place that had replaced the wartorn planet.

**\---**

The first thing Orion had tried to say when they stepped out onto the private landing platform that Ratchet had bridged them to was some sort of praise uttered with a wide smile. Windblade was so distracted with everything around her that she didn't catch the words and had to pull up recent sensory files to find them. 

"It's really quite beautiful, isn't it?"

Rather than answering immediately, the flyer stepped from the platform to the rooftop it rested upon. This sort of positioning would allow flightframes to merely land upon the site whilst non-flight capable bots would have to arrive from- ah. She caught sight of the lift a decent distance away from her. Since there was no spacebridge built on this rooftop, she had to just assume that the Earth-bound bridge defaulted to these coordinates enough to warrant the setup. 

Any thought on the platform and spacebridges was short lived once Windblade reached the edge. Her pedes wavered near it, close in a way that would be so easy to merely drop from- to fall and transform and soar out over the city because-because- 

Because there was a city there. Not ruins, not rusted salvaged work, not shoddily constructed military or refugee camps. 

And it wasn't like the Iacon she had once arrived on with the other diplomats nor like any of the other city states she'd visited in that time. There were no gold domes and spires. This city looked messy. As though it was built by different crews at different times and consistency wasn't the top worry held by such teams. Some buildings were blocky, some flat, some rounded, some tall, while roads crisscrossed through different levels of the air. She caught sight of tramlines similarly arching through the sky. That was familiar, in a way. Iacon had similar roads and transportation. The clean, fancy ones were high enough in elevation to be admired by all because, at such heights, they were impossible to not see. They kept the illusion of Iacon pretty. All those that the lower castes visiting the center of the city used were at surface or under surface level, where their drab make would not insult the optics of the nobility looking out over their viewscape. 

Though Windblade couldn't really grasp the presence of a city here, now, in a brightly lit world that had been dead just days before in her perspective, she could still note and approve of how these roads did not follow that theme of those old metropolises. 

Orion had slowly made his way over while she stood at the edge and gaped. Windblade remembered he'd asked a question distantly, but her mind wasn't on replying. Not yet. Not when it was so busy categorizing everything she saw in disbelief.

There were stadiums, race tracks, theaters, apartments. There were parks, one close enough to where they were that she could see an energon fountain in the style of Earth media's parks. There were various fliers in the air and her systems noted how many wore decepticon purple as they spun about. It wasn't right. She looked down instead of forward and saw the crisscross of roads and buildings creating those levels before the ground far below was finally met. It was a lively enough looking ground, from what she could tell at this distance. It was not shaded in the platforms and roadways above it, left in the dark to be littered with discarded trash and discarded mechs alike. That was a comfort. That was worth feeling something ferociously hot bloom in her spark. This was not a city built with levels so as to signify a caste. It was a chaotic jumble of a city, a mess of neon and clashing styles, and it did not separate into 'worth' or 'function' the way that golden city of old had. But even that warmth of seeing the victory autobots had dared to hope for felt a discrepancy at how many of those enjoying the happy chaos below were _not_ autobots. 

She'd only been a proponent of all their enemies dying in moments of heightened upset, but she'd still assumed that, upon decisive autobot victory, the surviving decepticons would be reintegrated and those refusing would be imprisoned. It wasn't _right_ to see so them keep their badge and flaunt it. 

Ah- but how could she hold any of those she watched now accountable for not doing so when the slagmaker himself kept his brand and rank and un-incarcerated life?

Speaking of that ill topic, Orion had gone from smiling at her and the city to glancing away. His expression blanked out to concentration. Listening to a call, she assumed. The assumption was proven a moment later.

"The others say they are ready to meet," he turned back to face her.

The others. Right. Because the warning she brought from Primus was important enough that multiple members of this new Cybertron were going to need to hear it. Orion had promised that he'd be keeping the meeting small for her sake, as she was still adjusting to waking up in this world and all familiar faces could be stressing when they didn't act the way she remembered them acting. Something like that. A load of slag. Windblade had been given a mission from Primus. She'd been a cityspeaker on multiple occasions long, long ago. She wasn't one to cave at stress. It was still unarguably sweet that Orion put thought and effort into her comfort. 

"There is a small room near the top of the capital," the mech continued. "It's rather unobtuse, so we should not need to worry about unwanted audials prying. Jazz has already told me he cleared all traffic through nearby corridors to keep it that way. Between he and Soundwave, this will be a chance for us and just us to theorize over our individual visions."

Good enough. The last thing Windblade wanted was Primus's vague vision to get misinterpreted, panicked over, or spread around enough that the dangers in said vision were forewarned over her knowledge of their threat. 

The idea of the decepticon spook being in any way involved wasn't as ideal. But considering the other con that Orion had said would come, Windblade could ignore Soundwave.

She took one last look over the alien city and reborn planetside it was built on and then stepped back. A flight could wait. This business was her first concern. Then, when it was done and the threat was nullified, she'd never have to go to a meeting hall with a decepticon warmonger and she could spend her time flying across the entire living planet. 

Who knew? This city was different enough from those she'd stood in before the war. Perhaps the planet would be different from that one too. Perhaps a reborn core meant the creeks and seas and crystal jungles of myths would exist again rather than being dust on a featureless landscape. 

The shock of this all still needed adjusting to. But when the fact that cities were thriving again without worry of air strikes and plagues and starvation had sunk into her as reality, Windblade felt she'd rather like this place. This capital city built around a living Well. This planet.

Perhaps that was evident to the other because of the hesitation spent before Windblade had actually stepped back. Either way, it seemed too apt to have been unnoticed considering what the other said next.

"Would you like to tour afterwards?" Orion asked. 

She wanted to fly.

Taking heed of how much had so, so very apparently changed since she'd been awake last, it would probably be smarter to stick to tour guides for now. Culture shock and confusion wouldn't get her far. Perhaps Bumblebee would be free to show her his favorite bars? Windblade had missed those hangout spots after the war destroyed the various bars and establishments of old. Since he evidently wasn't a traitor (no more than any of the autobots playing nice with their enemies now were) despite her initial idea upon seeing that poster on Earth, he'd likely be a good choice. Easy going enough to be relaxing even as she existed high strung in a newly confusing world.

"I could take you through the capital," the former Prime offered. "The Well is not far from here. Would you like to see it?"

Yes. Preferably not in a trance this time. 

Yes. How could she not want to?

"Let's wait 'til this meeting is over before making any plans," Windblade smirked at him. 

Because yes, she wanted to see the Well, see the city, see the whole fragging planet, but the rational part of her processor was aware that her mood may not be answering 'yes' anymore if this meeting went too poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update probably won't come until I'm done with the secret solinoid fic, which won't be done until I finish rereading mtmte again, so who knows, may not be back here til January. Thanks as always to all of you who've been waiting and following along!


	14. Boiling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between frustration over vague visions, confusion over adjusting, and remembering the deaths of old, Windblade decides that Today She Craves Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates are probably gonna be slower this year compared to last. Thanks for keeping up with this series, to all you readers who have! It's already been a year since the first fic started and you've all made this an incredible journey.

Hearing that a meeting was happening from Orion Pax was a polite, if unnecessary, formality. Soundwave had already known it was occurring. The autobot was extending an invitation. Either because he felt he ought to for decency or because he thought there might as well be an invitation offered to excuse Soundwave's inevitable presence when he would be found already seated in the room before any other arrived. 

It wasn't that he had to be there physically. He had surveillance for this entire citadel, despite the pest's best efforts to hamper that. He could continue working on his project here while those invested in mystical tales got their fill.

Could. Wouldn't.

Soundwave left the processors of Trypticon behind. He could witness any meeting hall remotely, but this would put Megatron alone in a space with Orion Pax (who had been glitching and was now returned from Earth after investigating the source of that glitch) and his allies. Soundwave did not plan on letting Megatron deal with such people alone. He would attend and his (former) leader would have the backup that Soundwave offered in war and peace.

Besides, he had seen the roster for this meeting. It had come alongside the reasoning for why one was justified at all: it would hold the autobot from Earth with the doomsday story to tell and the autobot on Cybertron with a similar vision.

The meeting would contain a cityspeaker. 

His project would rather benefit from one of those.

* * *

He was met on the way. The red and blue paint gave away the identity of the mech crossing his path immediately. 

Megatron accepted the chaperone without question. They exchanged weak pleasantries on the way and brief questions and answers over their respective jobs alone. Nothing was said of Starscream. There wasn't time to expand on that mess in the short trip to their meeting room from here, for one thing. There was no way to bridge into that discussion, for another. Orion was too polite to not be a respectful listener, but the words he'd offer afterwards never made anything feel less frustrating or wrong. Not that Orion was doing that on purpose necessarily; the ribbing, poking, prodding at open wounds that Unicron had torn permanently into him. He may have been some times, he may have been oblivious to the rest. The mech was more passionate than Optimus Prime had been but the Prime had practically been devoid and flat where his predecessor had been timidly energetic. Too worn to hope as he once had, too flat to let himself go in anger no matter how much Megatron had once loved to prod for such reactions. As Orion had once said so plainly on the day of his rebirth, his side of the coin made of archivist and Prime had always been more emotional than the Matrix-bearer. And disapproval, displeasure, anger- all were (however justified) emotions.

How different, however subtle, from the Prime left behind.

How different from Megatron himself now, after his own fire for passion had been smeared to nothing somewhere along the route of eternal suffering Unicron had offered when taunted too far. He and the former Prime had exchanged being emotional and being worn dry.

Poetic, pah.

They reached the room shortly enough. The other mech turned to face him, smile small.

"The rest are already here. Windblade probably feels like she's waited long enough to start this."

Megatron flashed dentae and spoke. "I'm as ready as she is. Let's not wait then, shall we?" 

"She's not adjusted to any of us, no matter if she acts confident enough to give that impression. So when we're in there- ...Just..Behave," Orion said. From another, it would sound joking. Another would not be a former Prime. Another would not have history behind them saying so clearly that humorous moods belonged to a taunting Megatron while sobriety and grim grief would be all displaced by Optimus. Their predecessors, at the least, would act so. It had been their script. 

So the words and attitude had almost seemed casual, but they didn't commit. They stung with millions of years of pain.

The dentae stayed bared in their sharp grin more out of tradition than anything else.

* * *

* * *

"And that's what I saw. I haven't had all those vorns since the vision to mull over any of it and I feel that its deadline approaches too soon. Whatever this danger is, we need it deciphered."

Windblade's wings felt pinched by the chair and her body. It was just one more added discomfort to an uncomfortable scene. At the same time, Orion sat across the table with an encouraging expression and Jazz was lazing in his own seat casually.

Maybe she should have just stood up to explain her part in this. Standing had always been her preferred position when explaining anything. Chromia had once told her it made her look too excitable. When that brat from Vos had said the same in a more patronizing way during their short time as allies in the militia, she'd started to accept that maybe her amica was right. Presentation was important. Optimus commanded thousands in part because of his own; because his patience, stoicism, bravery, and steadfast idealism was inspiring and shouldered the fear that lesser soldiers would have crumpled under. Unfortunately, Megatron had commanded thousands for the same reason. Charisma was a large part of presentation. Confidence. Optimus had never seemed overbearing, never promised victory or swore they would win, but his endurance in the fight spoke for its own; autobots felt a confidence that their victory could be possible so long as they kept going. 

Point was, apparently, that standing brightly and pacing and rocking on pedes was not confidence inspiring and instead spoke of overeagerness and nerves. It'd taken vorns, but Windblade had taken the advice to spark and adopted a confident (almost lazy to deny the idea she was nervous) posture. 

And it offered no chance to vent any of the real stress she felt like pacing would have. 

Once again, the pinch of her wings made itself known.

"This correlates to my vision," Orion spoke up and drew her attention away from the discomfort of her seat. "While I saw less details, the star saber was clearly trying to stress the images of Earth and an unknown mech for me. I saw a flyer as well, but I believe that was you, Windblade."

Made sense to her. 

"But this stranger...The star saber could only act as a conduit. The message was unclear. However, its senders, whether Primus or the Primes of old, recognized them. This mech came with a heavy sense of danger and...age, I believe."

Which narrowed it down to just about anyone on the older side of cybertronian life, now didn't it. 

"He's looking for a weapon. Primus mentioned he was searching for one. A way to kill any cybertronian," she added.

"You said he was after 'two worlds'," Jazz pointed out. 

"Right," Windblade said. "I would assume it meant Cybertron and a colony except that Earth was so prevalent in it all."

It hadn't seemed like that exciting of a planet from what she'd seen. The natives there were very...cybertronianoid, but besides the relation, it hadn't felt like an incredibly dangerous or thrilling place. If not for knowing Unicron lay at its core, she'd have thought it safe from celestial attention.

"It was prevalent in mine as well. This could have been merely to point me in your direction, but I do not know," Orion replied, shaking his head. "I'm afraid there's little that can be done without the Matrix. The Primes may wish to speak to me but their words are indecipherable without it."

Which brought them nowhere new. Just back to hypothesizing over a few phrases and smokey figures. 

They needed that clarity. She was a conduit and sentry, just as the star saber was a conduit, but they were useless until deciphered. 

The camien frowned.

"I could give flying into the Well a shot, but I don't expect to succeed with that. Primus was the one to pull me down there last time. I'm not sure I'd be given anything but radiation if I sat down there now. If Primus can talk, I figure he would have me in a trance again."

Once again, leaving them with nothing of substance.

Sitting near Orion, the last mech in the universe Windblade wanted to see let out a vent. 

Tired at the babbling? Yeah. See if she cared, Megatron. If the guy that'd tried to enslave and destroy the universe had anything to add, he was free to try and she was free to say it was slag that didn't help at all.

The decepticon brought claws away from where he had rubbed his forehelm in order to link them with his other servo's. The sight of those claws resting on the tabletop felt like a threat.

"So you have no leads on Cybertron then. Think about the alternative that you _do_ have: Why Earth? If the cityspeaker was there in the vision and in reality, then it's likely this other mech will be there instead of here as well since your 'visions' had him on the planet. So what could Earth have that would interest your threat here?" the warlord spoke.

Windblade wanted to shiver at the voice. The compulsion was stomped down on.

"Mech's gotta fair question. Any reason why this threat's gonna be showing up there?" Jazz asked from where his chair had leaned back enough to allow his pedes on the tabletop.

"Unicron's presence on Earth gives the opportunity for many dangers. Dark energon will still be present on the planet even if the antispark is contained," Megatron said. It made his earlier questions on why Earth was important at all seem rhetorical now that he sounded so casual in mentioning the uses the place would have to any megalomaniac planet destroyer. 

"But is that what our mystery threat is after?" the spy replied.

They couldn't say. 

A trip into the Well was starting to look more tempting. If nothing happened, nothing happened. Nothing to lose and answers to gain should there actually be contact with the being making up the core. They needed more to go on than they had. Earth was a big enough planet that they couldn't scour every place on it to find the 'mystery threat' before he found his weapon. 

Still...

"From what Orion's filled me in on, you would be our expert in dark energon and Unicron," Windblade addressed the decepticon. Corroded metal brows narrowed briefly before his expression turned to a smirk.

"You sound rather accusatory."

Did she? Oh, what a shame. She'd hate to give the wrong impression to her people's murderer. 

Windblade stood up to lean over the table, posture be damned. 

"If Primus is warning us about Earth and Unicron is no longer a threat there, what threat remains of his blood except for those that know how to use it?" she spat. "You've got an awful lot of familiarity with the stuff. If someone now has the idea to use dark energon, we know exactly where his idea came from. And that's assuming you're not the one giving this guy ideas on it."

Megatron's smirk widened into a grin her mind screamed was _threat, threat, threat._

"This is hardly my doing, little cityspeaker."

And most of her believed it, as much as she didn't want to. There was no distinctive suggestion of Megatron or decepticons anywhere in her vision. But it would be so easy if it was. So easy to jump on this as typical decepticon activity, of evidence of warmongering or crimes against nature continued. Nobody in this new world got to be charged for the crimes they did in the war, but the crimes done after their truce? That carried consequence. That could get rid of the way the last mech deserving to be called a Lord Protector sat here untouched.

Windblade clenched dentae until they creaked in protest.

"Ah, and I'm supposed to take your word for it? Really, yours? And you have it wrong- I'm no cityspeaker, Megatron. You saw to that by killing or twisting all of our titans. Why should I believe you?"

Orion lifted a servo. Windblade barely noticed. 

"I'm the figurehead of Cybertron's might," Megatron soothed. "It's my job to hear of any threat and formulate our defense against it."

The figurehead. Ha! Even he saw it then. He was a figurehead, yes, not someone who held real power. Figureheads merely stood as the face for something while strings were pulled behind.

How long would the warlord be content to accept that use? How long until this peace broke? 

It wasn't right, either way. The defense of Cybertron deserved a face that hadn't been the one responsible for destroying it in the first place. 

"You shouldn't be here. That's all I've got to say on it," she said.

"Really? Just that? I expected more from someone as renowned as you-"

There was more. It simply was nothing she would say. 

There was, after all, a distinction between words and actions.

Windblade's thoughts felt clouded. Clarity was a quality of cityspeakers, but she had not been one in vorns. She hadn't felt clear and directed since the last titan had fallen and Chromia had deactivated and the world had so obviously been unfixable. Yet it was fixed now. A little stasis nap and Cybertron was back, glowing, full of life, and the one responsible for the grief of the war and her own losses sat in front of her at a table as though he belonged, looking _smug_. Smug, of all things- she'd- she'd-

It was a poor idea in the first place. Even if he had been a technical hostile, this would have been stupid. The fact that he was (somehow) an ally made it worse in that regard. But she wasn't thinking straight. Not through the clouded thoughts and confusion (so much confusion, that was all this new world was). 

Stormfall was in her servo before she'd truly even noticed she was lunging. This new Megatron had more bulk than the one she remembered specs of from her time before stasis. Unicronian upgrades, Orion had explained during her time in Ratchet's medbay. Even tougher to damage that the already too-strong plating of a former gladiator. Still, she could bet there were weak spots. Between joints- currently unreachable. Faceplates, faceplates- she could reach those. She could do that. For all that had suffered or died, she could do that.

The strike hit the thinner plating of a cheek but went no further in. Stormfall's trajectory was waylaid as she was; something had shoved her back and to the side until she felt herself crashing against a hard surface.

Wh-

A figure- the one which held itself so still and silent she'd forgotten he was there- had shifted. If not for such an element of surprise, perhaps he wouldn't have seemed to have moved so fast. As it was, one flat arm's side slammed against her helm. Windblade heard vents whine as her processor fought to take stock of possible injuries from the impact. Even as her optics fritzed, she was already pushing up again. Pushing up-? Ah. The table. Formerly just a construct of annoyance, she was now finding her cheekplates well acquainted with its polished surface. Oh, frag no. 

Even as she twisted against the hold (for a skinny stick figure, Soundwave had surprising strength), there had already been a race of movement. From beyond where Soundwave had been sitting moments before, Jazz had sprung out of his own seat to move, one knee on the table, one arm braced on that knee, a servo-turned-gun towards Windblade's attacker. Without a battlemask, his lower face had shifted from laughter to a twisted snarl that blinked into something cold and blank. Plasma shot out from his weapon almost immediately after and Windblade could almost feel impressed at how the decepticon above her merely twitched his helm out of the way. _Almost_ , since it barely registered even in her mind. The missed shot hit the wall of this meeting room and seared there into charred darkness.

Across the table, Orion was yelling. It was a strange sound. Optimus commanded attention without yelling, even if his voice did raise when need be. It had been so long ago, but Windblade recalled the Orion Pax of old to rarely yell either. When he had, it was never an angry sound. It'd be more desperation, voice unused to such volume cracking through the words. If nothing else had slapped her in the face with this mech not being Optimus Prime, it was how this shout lacked his authority and confidence and dwelt instead in frantic worry. 

It did its job though. It got attention and gave a command.

"-us sake, would you all just- stop- now, Jazz, Jazz, get down, everyone- Stop!"

The last shout came with the slamming of two palms against the table. Windblade let herself go unresisting. Soundwave did not move until Orion had fixed him with a pointed glare. Likewise, Jazz only let his weapons shift away after the other spy had sat back. Their movements were made in cautious twitches. 

Windblade herself pushed up and slid down off the table as soon as Soundwave had let her. Her optics were on Orion and how-...disappointed he looked. Not necessarily in her more than the rest of them. Didn't hurt any less. Optimus had always been good at disappointed reprimands. His face just managed them so well. Add to it the panic of Orion and...

Well, guilt, that's what. She'd started a mess. Let the moment get control and break the peace. She didn't really belong here, she'd been risking a lot getting into the same room as the head decepticon, but for the sake of her vision, she'd- she'd-

What a mess. She'd fragged things up this time. Chromia would be laughing from her grave. They'd always laughed about the latter being nicer on Caminus before growing more ready to lunge into action and violence on Cybertron in order to keep Windblade alive. Looked like it'd become the instinct of both of them in time. 

There was a brief unstoppable thought on how well Chromia would adjust to waking up in this peacetime world. 

Windblade had a feeling it would've had an unhappy answer if the bodyguard in question was alive enough to test the curiosity. 

Still standing, Orion leaned over his servos to let out rattling sighs from his vents. It was a sobering sound. No, she hardly could find herself feeling remorseful over striking at the warlord, ex or not, that ruined their world, but the guilt felt at upturning Orion's meeting was unavoidable. 

"Enough," he said over the buzzing quiet of the room. Blue optics glanced up from his servos where they were planted angrily on the table's surface. "Just...enough."

There was a stiff laugh from where Jazz sat, vibrating and ready to spring into motion again. It didn't commit to the casual humor it was intended to.

"Oh please, Orion," a different voice started up, managing to sound as casual as Jazz wished he did right now. Windblade's weapons systems buzzed again but she didn't lunge over the table this time. "You can hardly blame them."

Hardly blame..? True, yes, but he shouldn't just sit there and accept it. He shouldn't sound so calm. He was the type that responded to any perceived slight with violence. 

This confidence was aggravating and unsettling both. The faux calm (what else could it be? Everything was faux with this mech) was uninhibited by the carving oozing violet on one scarred cheek. Violet? What cybertronian bled that colored energon?

The warlord brushed a claw against the dribble. As the bronze metal servo moved aside, Windblade could see the scarred face behind it. She could see the unnatural fangs, the drawn lines, the infected mouthplates curved open. Smirking. Windblade felt trapped momentarily. Inside her chassis, her spark flared and panicked at a sight millions of vorns of horror had seared into even the most toughened warrior's nightmares. 

Optim- Orion could say what he wanted. Even Ultra Magnus could. But she recognized that smirk- that characteristic curling maw of this warmongering maniac. The corpsely optics did nothing to deter her from seeing red. 

Her priorities should have aligned with Primus's. Primus had been most concerned about the upcoming threat even as he died slowly to his children's war. It so evidently should have been her focus and fear.

But it was hard to accept an otherworldly threat was endangering them when there was one so much closer to home sitting at her table.


End file.
